Janet Harker and the Chamber of Secrets
by Nerdfighter1309
Summary: Janet, Alice, John and the others return to Hogwarts for their second year at the magical school, this year, hoping for peace and quiet after the previous year, which seems unlikely. Meanwhile, back in the States, Luke is plotting something. This year told from the perspective of Alice
1. Chapter 1

This is a transcript of an audio file.

Emboldened text is a spell.

Italic text is in Ancient Greek and had been translated for ease of reading.

Text in inverted commas are thoughts of the narrator.

* * *

Um, hi, is this thing on? Well, I'm going for it. Hi, my name's Alice, if you are listening or reading this then please make sure you have read Janet's book thing about our adventures so far. So, um, Janet asked me to do this year's adventures, division of labour or something, so I reluctantly agreed to help her pet project, on the condition I could dictate it, rather than write it, the things I do for. Anyway, let's move on. Our adventure continues from us in Diagon Alley, yes, I know it is not where Janet ended her story, but unlike her, I don't see the need to include every little action in the story whilst turning a blind eye to emotions.

Diagon Alley, as always, was loud, noisy, and smelly, there were hawkers showing their wares at every corner, and drugged up squibs in the gutters, it always saddened me to see them treated badly, just because of their lack of magic. Several of the buildings seemed closer to falling over than last year, the leaning outer walls looming over us like a forest canopy of wood and stone. Our little group was walking and talking merrily as we walk down the street, there were four of us, Janet, John, Drake and myself. We had splintered off of the main group, with Chiron's permission of course, and were talking as we made our way to our next stop. The stop was the bookshop, Flourish and Blotts, we were doing the joyous task of buying textbooks, and visiting an English bookshop with Janet, who hated the place, because she loved to read and could barely read the books, because like all demigods she was hardwired for Ancient Greek, this was made worse by the fact she had learnt Ancient Greek before English.

Janet was a short girl, even by the standards of a twelve year old going on thirteen year old, she was a full head shorter than either Drake or John and a head and a quarter shorter than me. Despite her height she always carried herself in such a way that she always seemed the same height as anyone she was talking to, no matter how tall, well, except Hagrid. She had large dark brown eyes which were almost black that always seemed like they knew more than you, which was true, Janet was very clever, there was very little she seemed to not know, these eyes are set in her heart shaped face, along with her slightly upturned nose and the slightly elfish grin on her full lips. She also had long, slightly wavy blond hair, which stretched in a perfect waterfall down to her hips, her hair always made me slightly envious, it was just so, perfect. Everyone agreed that Janet was very pretty, everyone except Janet, who was totally oblivious to how half the boys in the year had crushes on her, which we found infuriating as we tried to hint it to her, but Janet is rather oblivious to other human's emotions, so she tends to ignore it.

John was about average height for our age, but he was also a lot stronger than most wizards our age, due to years of sword practice he had gained a fairly impressive physique. He had short blond hair that he left to style itself, so it was permanently messy, with tufts sticking out of a hairstyle that can only be described as a bird's nest. He had the same stormy grey eyes as his siblings, but his didn't seem as dark, something about them made them seem more of the grey of clouds in the distance, rather than a full on thunderstorm, like his siblings. He had the same intimidating look, like he was trying to work out how he would beat you in a fight whilst simultaneously outdoing you on any test, as long as it's in Greek or Latin, because, like Janet, Drake was clever, not as clever as Janet, but still clever. He was quite handsome; he had a strong chin and strong cheekbones. Like half the boys in our year, he had a crush on Janet, but unlike the others, he was more attracted to her mind than her face.

Drake was Janet's half-brother, they shared a mother in Hecate, the Goddess of Magic, this made the two of them the most powerful wizards in our class, if not the school, Drake was weaker than Janet, this is because Janet had inherited her father's not inconsiderate magical abilities, whilst Drake was sort of muggleborn, as he had a muggle father. Drake had longish dark brown hair, it reached the nape of his neck and covered his eyebrows, his hair was always perfectly style, I'm pretty sure he used magic to hold it in place, it was always perfectly straight with his fringe parted to the right. Unlike John, Drake was not handsome, although he was lean, he was not toned like John, he rarely trained with a sword as he spent most of his time learning magic. He had a weak, almost non-existent chin and cheekbones, which were hard to see under his skin, he was aware of how he looked, and it had made him sullen. This was the reason he spent so much time preparing for illusion magic, he was close to learning it, but he was not strong enough yet, and definitely didn't have enough control. Drake had become had become increasingly quiet and withdrawn, especially since Luke's betrayal.

I was tall for our age, taller than most people in the year, or the year above, I had coal black hair, which I always found rather boring, it was so, uniform, all one colour, except, it wasn't one colour, because black is the absence of colour. It never made sense to me why a child of Iris would have black hair, also, I couldn't even dye it, because wizards don't approve of dyed hair, they say it's a muggle's vanity. My eyes on the other hand, were much better, they were always colourful, like a child of Aphrodite, they were a range of colours, unlike a child of Aphrodite, they were a range of colours all at once, rather than changing when people weren't looking, if you hadn't already guessed. I love colourful things, it's why I always dress like, how did Janet put it, an explosion in a paint factory, when I wasn't in school I was dressed in the most colourful clothing I could find, it makes me happy.


	2. Chapter 2

Flourish and Blotts was a flurry of activity, even more than usual for the run up to school, the rickety old shelves, which were as usual crammed with books, but few were actually being taken off the shelves, most people appeared to be crowding around a table where a wizard was sitting signing books. There were dozens of middle aged women standing waiting for their books to be signed, the signs around the shop proclaim him as Gilderoy Lockhart, the world renowned adventurer, hero and author, or so the signs say. Gilderoy was about medium height, somewhere in his late twenties, he had perfectly styled shortish blond hair and twinkling blue eyes that seemed merry and mischievous, but seemed slightly deceitful, he was sort of handsome, with a strong chin. He was also slightly chubby, and was wearing an old-fashioned style of travelling robe in the deepest purple, with some swirls of lighter colours, he was slightly handsome, but his perfectly white teeth could always be seen under an arrogant smirk, whilst I approved of his colour choice, I neither liked nor trusted him.

"Which books do we need?" Janet asked as wove gracefully through the crowd to the bookshelves with the Greek books, she pulled out their shopping list; she proceeded to remove the required books from the shelves, "a little help?" John practically ran to help her, Drake followed reluctantly, I was about to follow when a shout rang out from the arrogant wizard at the back of the shop.

"It can't be, Harry Potter?" There was the sound of a chair scraping on the floor as he stood, I turned, sure enough, there was a rather embarrassed Harry standing next to Ron, his brothers, his Mum, his Dad and a ginger girl I recognised as Ron's sister. Harry was a little shorter than John, he was thin, but not as thin as last year, his family must have started feeding him properly after Janet gave them a warning last year. Harry had messy black hair that was slightly longer than John's was, he also had green eyes the colour of a glass bottle that were always looking around nervously, as though he was slightly afraid of everything, it was better than last year, but the scars of an abused childhood don't heal quickly. He was wearing his usual wire rimmed glasses as well as jeans and a mauve jumper. Lockhart sauntered over to Harry and looped one arm around him as if they were old friends, a group of journalists started taking pictures of the two of them.

"Who is he?" I asked Janet who was reading one of Lockhart's books in Greek, every few moments she grimace or glare at the book.

"Our new defence against the dark arts teacher," she said not looking up from the book.

"How do you know? They haven't announced it," I didn't doubt Janet was right, she was very good at working things out.

"Simple, no self-respecting wizard would put his books on the syllabus, except for him, they are a bigger fabrication of lies than a scientology convention or a history channel documentary," she said angrily as she closed the book, she was angry about this, Janet getting angry usually results in someone getting hurt, or turning into a squirrel. "I cannot believe he can say all this with a straight face and no-one calls him out, it is ridiculous and dangerous."

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Lockhart announced as he smiled at the cameras with his arm around a defeated Harry. "What an extraordinary moment this is, when young Harry here stepped into Flourish and Blotts this morning to purchase my autobiography, Magical Me," he picked up one of the books from his table and signed it with a peacock quill. "Which, incidentally is celebrating its twenty-seventh week atop The Daily Prophet's Bestseller List," Janet looked a little green. Lockhart smiled at the camera again, "he had no idea that he would, in fact, be leaving with my entire collected works. Free of charge!" He handed the signed book to Harry before signalling to a worker who handed Harry a pile of books, Harry was blushing furiously as he thanked Lockhart and slipped off into the crowd as Lockhart smiled for the camera and answered questions from journalists. I walked over to Harry who had just given the books to Ron's sister, she was a shortish girl, she was one year younger than us, with a round face and bright brown eyes, which like all the Weasleys, except Percy, shone with curiosity and happiness. Her eyes also shone with admiration when she looked at Harry, she had the same ginger hair and freckles as the rest of the Weasleys, she was rather pretty and seemed to have decided she had a crush on Harry, who probably didn't know.

"Hi Harry," I said as I stopped next to him.

"Oh, hi Alice, how was your summer?"

"Uneventful," I decided telling him about anything that happened in my summer was likely to raise questions from his companion.

"You must have loved that Potter," cue the Darth Vader entrance music, because, here's Draco. "Famous Harry Potter can't even go into a bookshop without making the front page."

"What do you want Malfoy?" I growled as I balled my fists, no-one can make me angry like Draco.

"Good to see you too Alice," he said mockingly.

"I can't say the same about you weasel," I said calming myself down.

"Ah, have resorted to name calling mudblood?" He spat, obviously hoping I would get offended, I chuckled internally as I thought, 'I still don't know what that means.'

"Leave him alone," Ron's sister shouted, Draco laughed.

"Look Potter, you have a little girlfriend," just then a man dressed in all black appeared from the crowd, he had white hair that went past his shoulders and the same piercing eyes as Draco, he has holding a cane that had a silver top, they looked so similar he must have been Draco's father.

"Silence, Draco!" He shouts at him, "Ah... Mr Potter. I don't believe we've met," his voice is slick, like a snake's scales sliding over one another. He raised a hand to Harry's forehead where he brushed aside his fringe to reveal his scar; Harry recoiled at the man's touch. Forgive me, Mr Potter, but your scar is legend. As, of course, is the wizard who gave it to you," he sounded like he respected him, 'of course' I thought, 'Janet did mention that Draco's parents were reputed to be Death Eaters.'

"He was a murderer," Harry muttered, not looking into the elder Malfoy's gaze.

"Yes, a pity about your parents," he didn't sound sad in the slightest, "curious that you yourself should escape with a mere flesh wound, curious, too, that you speak of him in the past. Surely, you don't think He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is gone forever."

"His name is Voldemort," Harry said finally looking Malfoy in the eye, everyone within hearing distance froze and gasped before busying off, Malfoy's dead eyes suddenly blazed with a fury that was quickly covered.

"You must be very brave," the slickness was gone from his voice, replaced with a strangled loathing whisper, "Mr Potter, to dare speak his name, or foolish."

"Fear of a word raises the fear of the thing itself, especially if the word has no power," I said, Malfoy whirled around to look at me, his look was one of disgust.

"So," his voice dripped venom, "you are the muggleborn witch that knocked out Crabbe's son, or was it Goyle, I can never remember."

"Nor can anyone," I muttered, Malfoy glared at me, before he could do anything Mr Weasley walked over.

"Ginny, Harry, it's madness in here, let's go outside," he said cheerfully, he was a tall man with the Weasley hair, although it was thinning a bit, and the brown eyes that spoke of unanswered curiosity, he didn't have the freckles though, and his eyes were tired, his robes were patched and patched again, but he seemed permanently happy.

Malfoy straightened up and turned to him, he had a fake smile on his face, "well, well, well, Arthur Weasley."

Mr Weasley paled when he heard the voice, he seemed to shrink, "Lucius," he nodded stiffly, his voice coming out weak and strangled.

"Busy time at the ministry with all these raids, I hope they're paying you overtime for all that," he picked up a transfiguration book from Ginny's cauldron, it was a bit battered, and missing a back cover, but the bindings were still good, "Obviously not." He shook his head, "dear me, what's the use of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"

"We have a very different idea about what disgraces the name of wizard, Lucius," Mr Weasley said his face red with fury.

Malfoy glanced over at me, "clearly, the company you keep and I thought you could sink no lower," Mr Weasley moved to hit him, but was stopped by a massive hand on the shoulder by Hagrid the friendly half-giant.

"Leave 'im Arthur, 'e's not worth ya trouble," Hagrid said in his usual blunt way.

"Here girl," he thrust the book back into the cauldron, "take your book it's the best your father can give you," he stormed off, followed closely by his demonspawn.

"No Malfoy's worth listenin' ter, rotten ter the core, the 'ole family," Hagrid shook his massive head and walked off.

"I got all the books," Janet said as she walked over carrying a pile of books, behind her John was carrying a much larger pile of books, "what did I miss?"

"Well, you didn't miss anything," I said, "well, except Hagrid, however, there was a close encounter of the Malfoy kind."

"Oh, okay," she suddenly started as she realised who else was there, "hello Harry and, er," she closed her eyes as though she was thinking, I knew better, she was trying to read their minds with legilimency, I elbowed her, she quickly opened her eyes.

"Ginny," I whispered, "her name is Ginny, and that's Mr Weasley," Janet smiled.

"Right, it's nice to meet you Ginny, Mr Weasley, I would shake your hands, but my hands are full," she looked down at the books.

"That's quite alright," Mr Weasley said smiling at her, "you know our names, but we don't know yours."

Janet blushed, she often did that when someone called her out on her forgetfulness, for someone with such an amazing memory, she really was very forgetful, "sorry, my name is Janet Harker."

"Harker? Are you Thom's daughter," Janet smiled and nodded at the enthusiastic man, "how is my old friend? I haven't seen him in, oh, eleven years, not since he left for America."

"Dad's fine, he's a high ranking Auror now, he's happy, I think," Janet said awkwardly, she didn't like talking about her family, because of what was always brought up...

"What about your mother?" Janet grimaced.

"She left when I was little, summoned home by family, I rarely see her," Mr Weasley looked embarrassed.

"I'm sorry I brought it up," he saw something through the crowd, "if you'll excuse us, we're being summoned, come on Harry, Ginny, it was nice meeting you Miss Harker, tell your father I said hi," he quickly slipped off into the crowd followed by Harry and Ginny.

"Well, he's certainly cheerful," Janet said as she walked over to pay for the books.


	3. Chapter 3

Platform 9 and 3/4 was a very crowded place, it was also huge, with high arched ceilings made of metal, and glass, and massive columns, and walls made of yellow bricks, some of which had been blackened by countless journeys by the Hogwarts express. The Hogwarts express looked like something from a museum, with its bright red lacquered engine and yellowish wooden carriages, and the blue uniformed guards it was a lovely engine, which made me wish I'd brought my sketchbook.

"So, which carriage?" I asked Janet as I scanned the crowd for familiar faces.

"That one," she pointed at one where the Weasleys, without Ron, were walking to, I nodded.

"You two have fun," Mr Harker said walking over, "I would say to keep out of trouble, but with you two, that's impossible, so, make sure it's the right kind of trouble," he hugged Janet and walked off to help load the baggage, we walked over to the Weasleys.

"Good morning Mr Weasley," Janet said cheerfully.

"Good morning Janet," Mr Weasley said enthusiastically in reply.

"Nice to meet you dears," Mrs Weasley said, despite not being a Weasley by birth she still had the same red hair, brown eyes and freckles as the rest of the family she was a stout lady dressed in a dress which had patches on its patches, she had a very commanding presence.

"And you, Mrs Weasley, I do presume," Janet said holding out her hand, which Mrs Weasley shook.

"Hello," I said, I was feeling a bit left out, because, as usual, everyone was focused on Janet, not that I object to her having the attention, she did deserve it.

"Oh, hello, erm," Mr Weasley froze as he tried to remember my name, "nope, it's gone."

"Alice, Alice Smith," I said, I wasn't surprised he didn't know my name, I had never told him.

"Right yes, how are you?" Mr Weasley said, I was saved from any further embarrassment by the final call.

"We've got to go," Janet said grabbing my hand and pulling me onto the train, "it was nice to meet you," she shouted to the Weasleys, who waved in return.

* * *

We walked down the aisle, looking in the compartments until we found one with Fred, George and Ginny sitting around playing exploding snap.

"Mind if we join you?" I ask cheerfully from the doorway.

"Not at all," George said standing and moving a trunk to the luggage rack, I smiled and sat next to George, whilst Janet sat next to Ginny.

"Have you two seen Ron and Harry?" Fred asked as he lost a round of snap.

"No," I said frowning, "I was going to ask you three the same thing, maybe they're sitting with Hermione, John or Neville."

"Oh, they're not with me," said a small voice from the doorway, we turned to Neville standing in the doorway, Neville was a very timid boy, he was shorter than Harry and slightly plump, with dark brown hair and blue eyes that were always looking down.

"Hmm," Janet hummed to herself as she closed her eyes, she was searching for them.

"What is she doing?" Ginny asked looking over at Janet, who appeared to be asleep.

"Shh, let her concentrated," I said to the girl.

"They're not on the train," Janet said as she opened her eyes.

"That was fast," I said, Janet smiled warmly.

"I've been practicing, Fred, George, your brother and Harry have missed the train, let's hope they don't do something stupid."

"This is Ron your talking about here, he sort of embodies stupid decisions," Ginny said.

"If you want sit down Neville, sit down, don't just hover there," Janet said smiling at the nervous boy.

"T-t-that's okay, I promised Dean I'd sit with him, I just heard you talking about me, so I came over," Neville said before leaving.

"So, how did you know they aren't on the train?" Ginny asked.

"Legilimency," an airy voice said from the doorway, we all turned to see a slim girl standing in the doorway. She was taller than Ginny and Janet, but shorter than everyone else, she had long platinum blond hair and unfocused blue eyes that seemed to be looking at something very interesting in the air above our heads, there was something about here, but what, I couldn't place. She was definitely eccentric, she was wearing radish earrings, and a cork on a necklace over the top of her purple cardigan, she was wearing jeans and shoes covered with strawberries.

"Hello, who are you?" I asked, I was confused, I had never seen her before.

"I am Luna," she turned her gaze to each of us, despite seeming unfocused something was off, I found her gaze deeply unsettling, the others seemed to as well, except Janet and oddly enough, Ginny.

"Would you like to sit down?" Janet asked, Luna smiled and wordlessly took the seat next to Janet.

Deciding I wanted to take my mind of the newcomer I decided to join the game of exploding snap, so I was only dimly aware of Luna and Janet having a conversation on the other bench.

It was dark when we reached Hogsmeade, we stepped off onto the platform to see Hagrid with his lantern, we bade farewell to Ginny and Luna who went off to the boats talking and laughing. Fred and George peeled off to talk to some of their friends, we walked to the carriages in silence, Janet was deep in thought, and I was just happy for company, "hey guys," John called from a carriage he shared with Hermione, "do you want to join us." I practically dragged Janet over to the carriage and clambered in, I sat next to John, whilst a distracted Janet sat next to Hermione, no sooner had we sat down when the carriage started moving, despite there being no horse or driver.

"Janet, Earth to Janet," Janet started and smiled.

"Sorry, I was distracted," she said in her usual cheerful way.

"We noticed," Hermione said, "what's on your mind? A problem shared is a problem halved."

"Oh, it's not anything important," Hermione scowled at this. Hermione was about average height-wise, she had long curly brown hair and inquisitive brown eyes that saw a mystery in everything, Hermione was very clever, she was always competing with Janet for the top mark. Janet then lapsed back into thought, Hermione was going to shake her, but I stopped her.

"It's not worth it, if you get her attention you're more likely to get hexed than get an answer," John shuddered at the thought of being hexed by Janet, no-one wanted to get hexed by her, "just leave her, she gets like this when she's tired, or jetlagged, or presented with a mystery, just let her be."

We passed the rest of the time to the castle with small talk, catching up on each other's summers, well, Hermione's summer; John and I didn't want to talk about ours, because it always resulted in talking about Luke, and Janet was doing her own thing.

* * *

The sorting was boring, as it had been last year, but we still politely sat through the hat's new song, I only knew two of the first years, Luna was sorted into Ravenclaw, which surprised me, and Ginny was sorted into Gryffindor, which didn't.

"Before you begin the feast," Dumbledore starts speaking from his podium, "I thought it would be prudent to announce Professor Quirrell's replacement, after his mysterious illness made him retire." He waved his hand to Quirrell's old seat, there sat Lockhart, he was wearing cherry red robes with embroidered silver swirls, "we are pleased to announce that the famed adventurer and author Gilderoy Lockhart has agreed to become the new defence against the dark arts teacher," there was a round of applause, "without further ado, dig in."

We needed no further instructions.

Halfway through the feast, Filch limped in and whispered something to Dumbledore, which made the old wizard stand and leave the hall with Snape and McGonagall.

"So, where are they going?" Janet asked leaning over.

"If I had to guess," Fred said from my left, "my little brother did something stupid with Harry."

We got out answer twenty minutes later when an angry Snape and McGonagall lead in Dumbledore and a terrified Harry and Ron.

"Yep, you were right," I said looking up from my slice of cake.

Harry and Ron sheepishly sat down on the bench, "what did you do, and how angry will Mum be?" Fred asked.

"We crashed the Ford Angelica into a willow tree, which then tried to kill us," Fred burst out laughing.

"A whomping willow," Janet said, "you're lucky to be alive."

"Mum is so going to kill you," Fred said after recovering from his laughter.

"It gets worse," Ron said pulling out his broken wand, it had snapped in two, Fred practically collapsed off the bench laughing.


	4. Chapter 4

The first lesson of the term was herbology in greenhouse three, there were plants in giant pots waiting on a table for us, Janet took one look at them and declared them immature mandrakes, in serious need of repotting. The greenhouse was a long building with a double line of students standing around a table, one on each side, the rest of the greenhouse was full of strange and wonderful plants.

"Detention, on the first day?" Neville asked the dejected Ron and Harry, "that has got to be a school record."

"I should think you'd count yourselves lucky that's all you got," Hermione said.

"I should think you'd mind your own business," Ron said glaring at Hermione, who glared back.

"So, when will they confess their true feelings?" I asked Janet, who just shrugged.

At this point in walked Professor Sprout, a short, stout old woman, with a cheerful face, she had curly grey hair and jolly, twinkly blue eyes, she was dressed in earth brown robes and a hat of the same colour, despite her age she had a spring in her step.

"Welcome to Greenhouse Three, Second Years. Today, we will be repotting Mandrakes. Now, who here can tell me the properties of the Mandrake?" Hermione, Janet, and Neville all raised their hands, "Yes, Miss Granger."

"Mandrake, or Mandragora, is used to return those who have been transfigured to their original state. It's also quite dangerous. The Mandrake's cry is fatal to anyone who hears it," I swear she memorises books for fun.

"Excellent," Sprout said as she clapped her hands together once, "ten points to Gryffindor. As our Mandrakes are only seedlings, their cries won't kill yet. However, they will knock you out for several hours. That is why I have provided each of you with a pair of earmuffs. If you would then," everyone put on their earmuffs, Ron had been given a rather fetching fluffy pink pair. Sprout carefully grabbed one of the plants by the stem just above the soil and pulled out a really ugly, dirty baby, which instantly started screaming, Sprout deftly pushed the mandrake baby into another, larger pot, which was soon filled with dirt, Sprout removed her earmuffs, everyone else soon followed suit, except Seamus, who had collapsed onto the table.

"It appears Mr Finigan neglected to wear his earmuffs," Sprout said, sounding disappointed.

Neville, who was next to Seamus, checked his pulse, "he's unconscious, but he was wearing his earmuffs, I think he's just fainted."

"Well take him to the matron then Mr Longbottom, you as well, Miss Harker, then come straight back," Sprout said smiling at her star students, Neville helped Seamus up onto his and Janet's shoulders, they then left the greenhouse, Janet taking the lead. "There's one every year, come on then, the mandrakes won't repot themselves, there are plenty of pots to go around, four to a tray."

* * *

At lunch, which as always was a grand affair, Ron was, for once, not eating, he was staring at his broken wand, now wrapped in spellotape, he looked utterly defeated.

"I'm doomed," the usually cheerful redhead said as he decided to add more tape.

"Can you do anything about this; you usually know what to do," Hermione asked Janet, "seeing him like this is like seeing a kicked puppy."

"I don't know how to fix wands, I could ask Mum, but she's very busy, I suppose Ollivander might be able to help, or," Janet trailed off as she got lost in her own world, I elbowed her, she started and rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment. "Sorry, got distracted, in theory, it is possible, in practise, the amount of magic needed would knock even me out, unless I had an inanimate magical medium of some kind to channel the magic through, but that would be more trouble than the wand is worth, he would be better off with a new wand, or getting it to Ollivander."

"Oh, okay, well thanks for at least thinking about it for me," Hermione said, just then a red envelope fell and landed in front of Ron, right into his mostly empty soup bowl.

"Open it Ron," Janet said smiling sweetly, "you're not scared of a little howler are you?" Ron blushed and glared at her.

"I am not scared pretty girl," Janet looked a little confused, Ron then reached out a shaky hand to touch the envelope, which suddenly burst into life at his touch, the voice was shrill and loud, it sends everyone's

"RONALD WEASLEY! HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT CAR! I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED! YOUR FATHER'S NOW FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK AND IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT HOME!" The voice then quietened and softened as it suddenly turned to Ginny, "Oh, and Ginny dear, congratulations on making Gryffindor, your father and I are so proud." The howler then ripped itself to shreds as everyone laughs, except Ron and Harry, Ron looks about ready to die from embarrassment, a first year with an old-fashioned muggle camera snapped a picture.

Janet also wasn't laughing, she had summoned a mirror, "Alice? What did Ron mean when he called me pretty girl?"

I sighed, my oblivious friend was oblivious, "just that Janet, you are very pretty."

"Am I?" She was frowning into the mirror, "I don't see it."

I decided to leave her to muse into her mirror; I had to go help Ron deal with a sea of people mocking him.

"Look at it this way," Harry said as he comforted Ron, "it can't get worse than this," well, except for the fact that defence was next.

* * *

Lockhart, as always looked like an idiot, he was dressed in colourful robes, which were a welcome change to black robes, it was just a shame about the wearer, he was grinning like a prize fool as he welcomed us into the defence amphitheatre. He was standing with a slight slouch in front of a desk with a rattling cage covered in cloth sitting next to an inkwell and quill.

"Let me introduce you to your new defence against the dark arts teacher. Blah, blah, self-praise, smiles, recite accolades, five times winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming-Smile Award. But I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her!" He paused for laughed, which never came, Janet had frowned, she was thinking, you can probably tell I zoned out for a while halfway through. After more talking and self-praise, Lockhart handed out a test, all about himself, Janet looked practically ready to explode, well, actually, she looked calm, but to anyone who knew her they would be able to tell that she was furious.

"This is ridiculous," Janet said loud enough for Lockhart to hear, her voice was perfectly calm and even, the calm before the storm, Lockhart whirled to face her, he looked angry.

"What was that dear?" He asked angrily.

"We both know you heard, I hate to repeat myself, so, I will say this, I will not fill out this test, it is pointless," everyone was nodding in agreement, except for the front row of girls, who were glaring daggers at Janet. "I will not listen to you, judging from your books you are an imbecile, most of your methods are useless, dangerous, or counterproductive, and you are a pathetic, vain, self-serving little man." Janet still had not raised her voice, Gilderoy was now pale and shaking with anger, and maybe a little fright, Janet then calmly stood up, most people were looking at her in shocking, but seemed to be agreeing, even the front row seemed to waver. "I take it you will now want to send me to the headmaster," Gilderoy nodded dumbstruck at being talked to like this, "very well then, I shall leave your lesson on stupidity, self-service and hero worship," Janet then walked out the room. I let out a breath I hadn't realised I had been holding, I genuinely thought she would have hexed him.

"You, you have thirty minutes starting now," I looked down at the questions, they were ridiculous, they were about hair care, ambitions and favourite colours, and all were about Lockhart, so I decided to answer them as sarcastically as possible.

"Time," Lockhart called, he gathered in the papers, he had a quick flick through them, as he leaned on his desk "Tut, tut, hardly any of you remembered my favourite colour is lilac. But Miss Hermione Granger knew that my secret ambition is to rid the world of evil and market my own range of hair care potions. Good girl," Lockhart suddenly turned serious, "now be warned! It is my job to arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind! You may find yourself facing your own worst fears in this room. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here," I swear half the front two rows almost swooned when he said that and grinned at them. "I must ask you not to scream. It might provoke them," you can say what you want about the man, but he was certainly a showman, everyone collectively leaned forward as he whisked off the cloth covering the cage, to reveal... seven electric blue pixies about seven inches tall with pointed faces, sharp teeth and pointed ears.

"Oh come on, Cornish Pixies, you're having a laugh," someone called from the back of the room.

"I most definitely not, my dear student, Laugh if you will, but pixies can be devilishly tricky little blighters. Let's see what you make of them now!" He opened the cage, the pixies spread around the room and attacked everyone, ink bottles shattered, books were shredded, Neville was hung from the light fixtures, everyone stampeded for the exit, I just swatted them away with Lockhart's dreadful book "Come on now, round them up, round them up, they're only pixies." He pulled out his wand, "Peskipiksi Pesternomi!" Absolutely nothing happened, except one pixie grabbed Lockhart's wand and threw it out the window, Lockhart then joined the scrum for the exit, "I'll ask you five to just nip the rest of them back into their cage," he slammed the door, leaving Ron, Harry, Hermione, Neville and I in the room with the pixies.

"What do we do now?" Ron asked flicking away a pixies who was gnawing on his ear.

" **Immobulus** ," Hermione cast, all the pixies froze, like a windup toy which had unwound, and fell to the ground.

"Why didn't you do that earlier?" I asked pulling a pixie out my hair.

"Why me?" Neville asked as we helped him down.

"I think class is dismissed," I said when Neville was safely on his way to the nurse, "Lockhart is a dangerous idiot."

"No he isn't, he just, he just, he just wanted to give us some hands on experience," Hermione said glaring down her nose at me, well she was trying to, but the height difference made it a bit difficult.

"No, he cast a non-existent spell, and made Janet furious with his advice, I'm pretty sure he didn't know what he was doing!" I shouted, Harry nodded as I said this, but Hermione was furious.

"Rubbish, read his books. You'll see all the amazing things he's done," Hermione said folding her arms, "besides, it wasn't right for Janet to speak to a teacher like that, what right has she got to tell off a teacher?"

"Those books are full of things he says he's done, and Janet has every right to express her opinion."

"Just stop arguing you two," Harry said as he stepped between us, "you're acting like idiots, look, we got off lessons early, let's go see if we can find out what happened to Janet."

"Yeah, you're right," I said backing down before I punched the know-it-all, Hermione simply nodded before walking out the room and heading in the general direction of the library. I grabbed Janet's things and followed the others as we walked towards the Common Room.


	5. Chapter 5

When we reached the Common Room we found Janet sitting in a chair waiting for us, well by waiting for us I mean she was curled up in an oversized armchair, which made her tiny frame look even smaller. The Common Room was a large and cheery room, it was full of comfy chairs, sofas, and couches, as well as a scattering of table piled high with books. The room itself was octahedral, with crimson-golden wallpaper and massive tapestries and paintings of Gryffindor alumni, the floor was wooden and covered in finely embroidered rugs, one wall is dominated by a fireplace, whilst another was a window, which overlooked the Quidditch pitch.

"I heard you had some fun with pixies," Janet said as she closed the book she was reading and pulled herself out the chair.

"Oh yeah, it was great, they scared off Lockhart who made up a spell to stop them," I said as I handed her books back to her, "then I got into an argument with Hermione, who's stormed off dramatically."

"She'll cool off; we just have to find something interesting for her," Janet said, she then turned to smile at Harry, "oh yeah, Harry, Wood stopped by, he asked me to tell you that the first Quidditch practice is at lunch today."

"Oh, thanks, I better dig out my uniform and broom," Harry said as he blushed and rushed off to the bedrooms, Ron in tow.

"So, we are going to watch that right?" I asked my short friend.

"Of course, it's try-outs, they are always good for a laugh," she said as she chuckled to herself.

"So, how did your conversation with Dumbledore go?" I asked, Janet buried her face in her hands.

"I am going to have to attend lesson with that blowhard, Dumbledore was quite firm on it, he said I was too young to drop a class yet," she sighed and drew herself up. "I'm going to try and convince him to start a duelling club under some other teacher, so we actually learn something, did you know Flitwick used to be champion duellist when my Dad was young, and both Snape and McGonagall have experience from the war." I was surprised by this, 'little Flitwick, a champion duellist? It seems silly.'

* * *

At lunchtime, Ron, Janet and I were sitting in the courtyard waiting for the Gryffindor team to go to practice, Janet was reading her ever present book, "do you ever wonder why we're here?" She asked suddenly, probably spurred on by something she read, I was saved from answering by the arrival of both Slytherin and Gryffindor Quidditch teams in full sports robes.

"Uh oh, here's trouble," Janet said as she rose and walked over to the confrontation, Ron and I followed, Wood was reading a note when we reached the group.

"I, Professor Severus Snape, do hereby give the Slytherin team permission to practice today, owing to the need to train their new Seeker. You have a new seeker? Who?" The Slytherins part to reveal the smug face of Draco Malfoy.

"Draco?" Harry exclaimed in disbelief.

"That's right, and that's not all that's new this year," Draco sneered as he gestured at his new and very shiny broom.

"Those are nimbus two thousand and ones," Ron gasped.

"A generous gift from Draco's father," the captain said, smiling an uneven smile.

"That's right, Weasley. You see, unlike some, my father can afford to buy the best," Draco said leering at Ron, which really was a low blow Draco.

"It's good to see they teach the corrupt officials of the future corruption from a young age," I said smiling at Draco, who growled whilst the Gryffindors present laughed.

"No-one asked your opinion you pathetic little mudblood," there was a sharp intake of breath, 'I still have no idea what that means,' I thought.

"Draco, I'm taller than you, so if I'm little, then," I left the thought hanging.

"Fine then, you're a pathetic, freakish mudblood."

"That's it Draco," 'oh no, Ron's getting involved, this won't end well,' I thought as Ron drew his wand. "Eat slugs Malfoy," there was a flash of light and Ron flew backwards six feet, Harry, Janet and I rushed to help him to his feet.

"Ron? Ron are you okay?" Harry asked, Ron was looking green and his cheeks were bulging like a hamster's, suddenly Ron threw up a slug, which fell to the ground, the Slytherin team laughed, whilst on the Gryffindor team Fred and George jumped at Draco, but were held back by Wood. A small brown haired first year with a camera rushed over and took a photo.

"Whoa, can you hold him still Harry?" The buck toothed first year asked.

"Out the way Colin," Harry said, pushing him lightly out the way, "easy there Ron," Harry started helping Ron to his feet, Harry put one arm over his shoulder, and I put the other over mine, "let's get him to Hagrid."

We started taking the semi-conscious Ron away, I looked back to see Janet staring at the Slytherin team who were still arguing with the Gryffindor team, "Janet are you coming?"

"Yes," she turned and smiled before rushing after us.

"What did you do?" I asked suspiciously, I'd known her long enough to know she was up to something.

"Just glue shoe jinxes, they're going to look rather silly without shoes when they work out what happened," I sighed, 'at least she hasn't gone overboard, for once.' "Can't you fix this?" I whispered to Janet.

"Could, yes, would, no, Ron needs to learn his lesson about messing about with broken wands," Janet whispered back.

* * *

Hagrid's house was on the edge of the forbidden forest, it was a large, one room, shack made of rough boards, but despite appearances it was sound enough, Hagrid was outside splitting logs when we arrived. "'Ello ''ere, wasn' expec'ing you lo', well this is a pleasan' surprise," suddenly Ron vomited up another slug, "ah, 'ow did that 'appen?"

"Ron broke his wand and his hex backfired," Harry said.

"Well, you better come in then," Hagrid said putting down his massive axe.

The one large room was cluttered, it had a large hearth at one end, with a Hagrid sized bed at the other, there was also a large table which dominated the area by the hearth. Hams, pheasants and herbs hung from the ceiling, and cabinets lined the wall, there was also a patched up sofa, which was mostly hidden under Fang, his massive, cowardly wolfhound, who was asleep.

"Got jus' the thin'. Set 'im down on that chair o'er there." We sat Ron down in Hagrid's armchair, Hagrid vanished into the pile of belonging by the fire and returned with a copper bucket, which he placed on Ron's lap, Harry raised an eyebrow at his massive friend. "Be'er out than in. 'o was 'e tryin' ter curse anyway?"

"Draco, he called Alice a mudblood," Harry said, he looked just as confused as I did.

"Which no-one will tell me what it means, I get that it's an insult, but I don't have a clue what it means," I said annoyed that no-one would answer me, Harry nodded in agreement

"It means dirty blood," Janet said grimly, "mudblood is a really foul name for someone who was muggleborn, someone with non-wizarding parents, someone... like you or Hermione. It's not a term one usually hears in civilized conversation."

"Yeh see, Alice. There are some wizards, like Malfoy's family, who think they're better than everyone else 'cause they're what people call pureblood."

"Oh, so, it's like magical racism," I said smiling, everyone else laughed, 'when I put it that way, it makes Malfoy sound like even more an idiot.'

"An' it's codswallop ter boot. Dirty blood," Hagrid snorted, "there's 'ardly a wizard today that's not 'alf-blood or less. If we 'adn't married muggles we'd've died out long ago. Besides, they 'aven't invented a spell our 'ermione can't do, don't think on it fer a minute Alice."


	6. Chapter 6

After we left Hagrid we went our separate ways, Janet and I went back to the Common Room to pick up some books, whilst Harry and Ron went to see Hermione. We didn't see them again until after supper, we hadn't seen them at supper, and I was starting to get worried, we were walking along the second floor corridor after supper when we found them. They were standing in a puddle, in front of a message, which appeared to have been painted in blood, Mrs Norris, Filch's demon cat was hanging from a torch bracket by its tail.

"The Chamber of Secrets has been opened, enemies of the heir... beware," Draco read before laughing, "you hear that mudbloods, you'll be next," I flicked his ear, "ow stop it mudblood," I flicked his ear again.

"What's going on here? Go on now! Make way..." a very angry Filch shouted before stopping dead, "Mrs. Norris!" He turned to Harry, with his hands close to Harry's throat, "you! You've murdered my cat! I'll kill you! I'll -"

"Argus," Dumbledore shouted from the back of the crowd, who swiftly part to let him, McGonagall and Snape through.

Lockhart suddenly arrived from a different direction, "sorry I'm late, what I miss?" He then turned to see the message and cat, "ah, nasty, poor little pussy, It was definitely a curse that killed her, probably the Transmogrifian Torture. Encountered it myself once, in Ouagadougou. The full story's in my autobiography..."

"It's not dead Gilderoy," Dumbledore cut in, "everyone will proceed to their dormitories immediately," Dumbledore announced, he then turned to Harry, Ron and Hermione, "everyone except you three."

* * *

When we arrived back at the Common Room I looked for Janet, she was sitting in a chair by the fire talking to a terrified Neville, "you're fine Neville, you heard Draco, it's after muggleborn, you're a pureblood," Neville stopped crying and smiled weakly.

"Can I talk to you Janet?" I asked Janet quietly, Janet quickly summoned a cup of hot chocolate for Neville.

"Here, Neville, drink this, coca always helps me calm down," she hand the cup to Neville who thanked and her, She then stood and followed me to a more private corner.

"What could have done that?" I asked quietly, so no-one overheard.

"There are a dozen spells that I know of, not to mention a dozen or so species of Greek Drakon, hundreds of potions, and assorted artefacts, ghosts and monsters. Until we have a pattern I cannot hazard a guess, our best guess is to look for this Chamber of Secrets, and its heir," just then Harry, Ron and Hermione walked in, we signalled them over, "so, how'd it go?"

"Fine, we had an alibi, so they didn't punish us," Harry said tiredly, as his stomach rumbles, Janet summoned some bread and cheese, which Harry, Hermione and Ron tucked into.

"There's something else, isn't there?" Janet asked thoughtfully, Ron froze and looked around before leaning in.

"Harry heard a voice," Ron whispered, "that talked about killing, I think he was just tired, no-one else heard it."

"Hmm," Janet said in thought, "describe the voice, Harry."

"Well, it was a hissing voice, I had to listen carefully to hear it, it was slow but sped up," Harry said cleaning the crumbs off his robes.

"Well, that narrows the list," Janet said in thought, "actually, not much."

"What list?" Ron asked, he was obviously confused, yet again, it seemed to be Ron's natural state.

"It could have been, a crazy wizard, a dozen different species of drakon, hundreds of potions, or an assortment of artifacts, monsters and ghosts, the hissing voice only Harry could hear could be legilimency, or parseltongue, or just a ghost trying to spook him, which really only gets rid of the assorted monsters, the question is why alert Harry?"

We mulled that over, with Janet and Hermione bouncing ideas back and forth, and agreeing only on including John on our discussions.

* * *

During Transfigurations the next day we found out about the Chamber of Secrets, we were all sitting at our desks with animals sitting in front of us, I had Felix my lovable ginger tomcat, Janet had Frosty, her owl, Ron had Scabbers the rat etc, McGonagall had a bird of some kind sitting on her desk.

"Today class, we'll be turning animals into goblets and back again," she tapped the bird, which turned into a crystal chalice she then tapped it again and turned it back, "who will go first?" Her eyes focused on Ron, "Mr Weasley," Ron gulped and tapped Scabbers, who turned into a furry goblet with whiskers and a tail, the room erupted into laughter, "oh dear Mr Weasley, you need to replace that wand." Janet leaned over and tapped the goblet, turning it back to normal, "thank you Miss Harker, Mr Weasley you won't be doing any transfigurations with live animals until you replace that wand." McGonagall then turned to see Hermione's hand up, "yes Miss Granger?"

"Professor, I was wondering if you could tell us about the Chamber of Secrets?" Total silence fell over the class.

"This is transfigurations Miss Granger," McGonagall said shortly.

"Yes, Professor. But there seems to be very little written about the Chamber of Secrets. For those of us with a personal interest in the subject, that is... disturbing," McGonagall thought for a long while before nodding.

"Very well. You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age: Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. Three of the founders co-existed quite harmoniously, one did not."

"Three guesses who," Ron whispered.

"Salazar Slytherin wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families, in other words, purebloods. Unable to sway the others, he decided to leave the school. According to legend, Slytherin had built a hidden chamber in this castle, known as the Chamber of Secrets. Shortly before departing, he sealed the chamber until that time when his own true heir returned to the school. The heir alone would be able to open the Chamber of Secrets and unleash the horror within, and by so doing, purge the school of all those who, in Slytherin's view, were unworthy to study magic."

"Muggleborns," Hermione whispered, McGonagall nodded.

"Yes. Naturally, the school has been searched many times for such a chamber. It has never been found."

"Professor, what exactly does legend tell us lies within the Chamber?"

"The Chamber is said to be home to something which the heir of Slytherin alone can control. It is said to be home... to a monster, but no-one knows what kind."

After that, the lesson went back to normal, so we couldn't discuss it until we were out the room, so we gathered as a group in the corridor, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Janet, and I started talking as we stood in a group in one of the corridors.

"So, Do you think it's true? Do you think there really is a Chamber of Secrets?" Ron asked.

"Yes," Janet said, "if it is Slytherin's monster then it fits, unless it's a crazy wizard who wants to scare everyone."

"But if there really is a Chamber of Secrets, and it's really been opened, that means..." Hermione said before trailing off.

"Slytherin's heir has arrived at Hogwarts," I finished, I felt myself pale, 'what monster are we facing? What is in the Chamber of Secrets? And how will we find it before it finds us?'

"The question is who is the heir?" Janet said her hand rubbing her chin in thought, "if we know that, then the monster is a non-factor, we just prevent the heir from re-opening the chamber and then they cannot use the monster."

"Hmm, I wonder," Ron said in deep fake thought, "who do we know who hate muggleborns?" He asked as he turned to look at Malfoy.

"Oh grow up Ron," Janet said in annoyance, "just because your families have a feud and he's an arse does not mean he is evil. The Ministry has genealogy records for all the major pureblood families, true they have been botched a bit, but they are in the public domain, they are used to prevent inbreeding between the families, we just ask someone to look them up, or we ask Dumbledore." I had to agree with Janet, Malfoy was an arse and a bully, but he wasn't about to attempt murder.

"Would he know?" Harry asked, "I mean, he's clever, you know he's frickin' Dumbledore, but would he know who the heirs are? I doubt that would be common knowledge."

"Okay, Ministry records it is then," Janet said turning to look at Ron.

"The Ministry records would probably only include legitimate children and ignore squibs," Hermione said, "despite the fact squibs almost always have magical children, so they wouldn't be on the record."

"So, it's back to trial and error through educated methods," Janet said sighing slightly, "that means most of Slytherin house are our suspects, ignoring muggleborns and putting less weighting on half-bloods. We also have the return of person or persons known, as it doesn't have to be a pupil."

"So, it's Malfoy, I mean, you heard him," Ron said, "you'll be next mudbloods," Ron did a pretty poor Malfoy impersonation.

"I heard him but still don't believe, it could just be an idiot making a lot of hot air," Janet said levelling a look at Ron that she was talking about more than one person.

"Maybe Ron's right, Janet," Hermione cut in, "I mean, look at his family. The whole lot of them have been in Slytherin for centuries."

"And, mines been in Gryffindor for centuries, I'm not the heir of Gryffindor, so has Ron's and Harry's," Janet said, she then sighed a sigh that was a weary adult sighing at a child, "but I will humour you, even if just for the right to say I told you so."

Ron grinned, "Crabbe and Goyle must know, maybe we can trick them..." Ron began before Hermione cut in.

"No," Hermione cut him off, "even they aren't that thick, but there might be another way. Mind you, it would be difficult, not to mention we'd be breaking about fifty school rules, and it would be dangerous. Very dangerous." Everyone stared at her, this was "we could have died or worse yet, expelled," Hermione and she was suggesting breaking rules? Madness.

"Count me out," Janet said surprising everyone, "I said I'd help with finding out if it was Malfoy, but if you're suggesting what I think you're suggesting, forget it, there's another method, much simpler method, but I said I'd help look, not provide ideas, I'm off to fill in John before you do something stupid." Janet left, I took my leave as well, I wanted to get homework done on time, for once.


	7. Chapter 7

Two weeks later was the opening Quidditch game of the season, this year the supporters were separated after angry letters from three sets of very influential parents and one domineering grandma, I can't imagine what caused that, can you? The separation was only Slytherin and Gryffindor, all the two went wherever they wanted, there were also staff positioned to keep the peace and break up fights.

"Gallopin' Gorgons! Slytherin's flyin' like they got dragon fire in their brooms..." Hagrid said, Hermione, Ron, Janet, John, Hagrid, Luna, you know, from the train, Ginny and I were all sitting together, Luna was wearing a very interesting hat, it was a lion, and it would occasionally roar, it was the most impressive hat I'd ever seen. I still had no clue how to play this game, it made zero sense, I wasn't the only one, Janet was reading and John had somehow fallen asleep. Ron on the other hand, was furious, he seemed to take the Slytherin dominated game as a personal insult, he grabs Hagrids oversized binoculars and looks at the teachers' box and glares down the lenses.

I looked up and saw Harry, he and Malfoy were searching the pitch for the snitch when a bludger went straight for him, he rolled out the way and one of the twins whacked it with a paddle, sending it away, the bludger defied expectations as it went straight back at Harry, "Blimey, Harry's got 'imself a Rogue Bludger!" Hagrid called, the jolly giant was no longer jolly, but definitely still a giant.

"Rogue bludger?" Ron asked turning the binoculars to the pitch.

"Look fer yerself, it's bin' tampered with." Harry zigs, and zags but can't shake the relentless bludger, Ron drew his wand, but was stopped by Hermione.

"You're joking, right? Besides, even with a proper wand, it's too risky, you could hit Harry," by now, Janet was paying attention, her book all but forgotten.

"Can you?" I ask, implying she stop the bludger.

"Yes, I can, but I also can't, after last year a shield was put up that only Dumbledore and the head of house can bypass, it would take too long to disassemble."

There was a gasp, I looked up to see Harry and Draco diving, whilst pursued by the bludger, they were chasing something that I could barely see, it was the snitch. Harry and Draco chase the snitch through the supports of the stadium, the bludger following, suddenly Draco kicked Harry off course, Draco turned and gloated, before slamming straight into a beam, there might have been a cheer from Gryffindor for that. Harry almost got to the snitch when the bludger returned and hurtled straight at Harry, hitting him in the arm, Harry managed to grab the snitch, a cheer rose from Gryffindor, before it was silenced when Harry crashed onto the pitch. Gryffindor were announced the winners as teachers streamed onto the pitch, without a word Janet, Hermione, Hagrid, John, Ron and myself left our seats and rushed down to the pitch. The bludger was lying inert on the ground, we reached Harry just as Lockhart reached him, Harry was cradling his arm, from the look of things it was broken, "Not to worry, Harry, I'll fix that arm of yours straight away," I facepalmed, this was going to fail epically, but we couldn't do anything, he was still a teacher.

Harry shied away from him, "no, not you, anyone but you," I couldn't blame him, I'd prefer major surgery performed by Filch and Luke to Lockhart healing a papercut, Lockhart looked sad and hurt, then he cheered up and laughed.

"Poor boy doesn't know what he's saying. This won't hurt a bit..." Lockhart flourished his wand and Harry's arm flopped like a rubber glove full of custard, Harry stopped bracing himself, then he looked up, then looked down and gasped in shock. "Ah, yes, well, that can sometimes happen, well, the point is, the bones are no longer broken," one of the teachers hit Lockhart around the back of the head.

Hagrid stepped forward and scooped up Harry before glaring at Lockhart, "Brok'n? He doesn't 'ave any bones at all!" He then carried Harry away, followed by Hermione, John and Ron. The knot of teachers dispersed, leaving Janet, a nervous Lockhart and myself.

"Professor Lockhart?" Janet asked quietly walking over to Lockhart, who jumped in surprise.

"Yes Harriet?" Lockhart asked, 'I swear he's worse than Mr D over names.'

"Janet, Professor, I was wondering," Janet started slowly, "what on Earth you were thinking when you, someone with no medical training, decided to heal a broken arm?" Lockhart flinched as if he'd been shouted at, despite the fact Janet's voice was still even and calm, and you know the fact she was just over half his height. "You also did it without consent, you always require consent for medical magic except in possibly lethal situations, and technically, that was assualt, so well done, you just broke three laws," Janet spun around and stalked off after Hagrid, a look of disgust on her normally calm face.

* * *

That night there was another attack, it was Colin, you know, the annoying kid with the camera, he was by himself, taking pictures, when he was attacked. The six of us were discussing this the next day after Harry was released from the infirmary, we were sitting in the second floor girls lavatory, whilst Hermione was sitting on a stool and brewing a potion. "I also found out who closed the barrier at Kings Cross and sent the bludger after me," Harry said, "it was a house elf called Dobby, he was trying to scare me off to protect me from something."

"Probably the monster," Janet muttered, I was surprised, she had been quiet so far, she was probably thinking, or was tired.

"Oh yeah, I remember now," Harry said suddenly, "Dumbledore and McGonagall said that the chamber had been opened again."

"Again? You mean, the Chamber of Secrets has been opened before?" Hermione asked as she added eye of newt.

"Of course!" Ron exclaimed, "don't you see? Lucius Malfoy must've opened it when he was at school here, and now he's told Draco how to do it."

"Nope," Janet said, shaking her head, "our Dads were in Lucius' year, and my Dad had never heard of the chamber when I messaged him."

"Well, maybe they didn't tell everyone the chamber was opened and said something else did it," Ron said desperately defending his hypothesis.

"Maybe," Hermione was not convinced, "we'll have to wait for the Polyjuice Potion to know for sure," I shuddered at the thought of Polyjuice, it had left a bad taste in my mouth after Idaho.

"Enlighten me," Ron said glaring at our surroundings, "why are we brewing this potion in broad daylight, in the middle of a girls' lavatory? Don't you think we'll get caught?"

I laughed, "not with Moaning Myrtle in here."

"Who's Moaning Myrtle?" Ron asked.

There was a piercing scream and Myrtle raced out the wall, she was a young ghost, only about our age when she died, she had long pigtails, which were either brown or black when she died, she wore a school uniform and large round glasses. "I'm Moaning Myrtle," she said in a nasal voice startling Ron and Harry to their feet, "I wouldn't expect you to know me, who would ever talk about fat, ugly, miserable, moping, moaning Myrtle?" She then screamed and dove into a toilet.

"She's a little sensitive," Hermione said adding another ingredient.

"Eureka," Janet shouted as she clicked her fingers, as she always does when she works out a puzzle, as always, multicoloured sparks fell from her hand, she stood up beaming from excitement, John and I stood as well, so we weren't the only ones sitting on the floor.

"No I don't, that's the potion," Ron said angrily, I hit Ron around the head.

"It means I found it, Janet's worked something out," Ron blushed and nodded.

"The Slytherin's monster is a snake of some kind," Janet said, "Slytherin was famous for being the best in the world at two types of magic, legilimency and parseltongue, it cannot be the former, because legilimency is not inherited, however, parseltongue is, everyone of a certain legacy is parseltongue." I was really confused, I'd never heard of parseltongue.

"Wait, what's parseltongue?" I asked.

"Parseltongue was one of the first magics; it's the ability to talk to snakes," Hermione said, "any descendent of Slytherin would be a Parselmouth, whether they were legitimate, illegitimate or even a squib."

"So, we find a Parselmouth, and they would be Slytherin's heir?" Harry asked.

"No such luck," Janet said shaking her head, "Parselmouths are rare, but not unknown, we know someone who came with us from America who's a Parselmouth, and there is no way he's Slytherin's heir." I looked at her strangely, I had no idea who, "you know, Alex, the fourth year in Slytherin." I did know Alex, he was a son of Hermes, who like all Sons of Hermes was in Slytherin, but he was by no means a blood purist, he was a demigod after all, purists hate demigods, as we are filthy half-breeds, according to them at least.

"Why is this so hard?" Harry shouted as he ran his hands through his hair.

"Did anyone else hear that Lockhart has started a duelling club?" I said trying to change the subject, the twins had mentioned it at breakfast, seeing everyone else's disbelieving faces (except Hermione, who looked about ready to explode from excitement), "it's either going to be great, or dreadful, or both."

"So that's what Dumbledore did with my suggestion," Janet said, she shook her head, "earlier in the year, right after I kicked myself out of Lockhart's first class, I suggested to Dumbledore that he got a duelling club starting. Dumbledore must have decided that with the chamber open it would be time to start a duelling club, but to ask Lockhart to do it is like asking a fish to climb a sand dune, the two are mutually exclusive."

"I think Lockhart's going to be a great duelling instructor," Hermione said, continuing her hero worship of an at best mediocre author.

"Have you learnt anything in defence this year, beyond the size of Lockhart's ego?" I asked, 'because I certainly haven't.'

"Well I learnt the proper way to ward off a banshee," Hermione started.

"Lockhart told you the proper way to aggravate a banshee," Janet said, "the man's a dangerous egotist, I bet you that even Ron could beat him in a duel," "hey," "with the broken wand, whilst wearing a blindfold and balancing Fang on his head."

"How dare you?" Hermione shouted angrily, standing from behind the cauldron.

"Just agree to disagree you two," John said stepping between them, "we're going to be late for lessons."


	8. Chapter 8

At about 8pm there was indeed Lockhart's duelling club. The walking ego appeared to be wearing part of a duvet over one shoulder, he was also wearing a quilted silver doublet over a white shirt and a thick glove on his right hand, he was standing on a blue and golden stage which had the phases of the moon painted on its surface. We were all in the front row, we had been joined by Ginny and Drake, and John was on the other side of the stage with Luna, Janet was a strategically safe distance from Hermione, just in case.

"Gather round! Gather round!" Lockhart was ignorant of his co-instructor's contempt he started walking to one end of the platform. "Can everyone see me? Can you all hear me?" There was a wave of muttered confirmation as he reached the end of the platform, spun around, and in a voice slicker than Draco's hair gel started talking, "excellent, in light of the dark events of recent weeks. Professor Dumbledore has granted me permission to start this little Duelling Club, to train you all up in case you ever need to defend yourselves as I myself have done on countless occasions, for full details, see my published works." A groan rose from those in the room who didn't believe his tales, he stopped half of the way along the stage pulled the duvet off and threw it into the audience, who proceeded to fight over the damn thing.

"Let me introduce my assistant, Professor Snape," all heads turned as old beaky got stiffly onto the stage, glaring contemptuously at Lockhart as he did, "He has sportingly agreed to help me with a short demonstration, now I don't want any of you youngsters to worry, you'll still have your Potions Master when I'm through with him, never fear!"

Janet snorted, before whispering to me, "he does know that Snape is an expert duellist, doesn't he? I think we may need a new defence teacher by the end of this demonstration," she sounded hopeful. Lockhart winked at the audience and turned to face Snape, drawing his wand from his belt as he did so, the two teachers put their wands straight up in from of their faces, then down to their side and then they bowed deeply before turning, walking five paces and turning to face each other, they then readied themselves. Lockhart got into a fencing pose, with his wand point at the ceiling and his left fist on his hip, Snape had his right arm arched over his head, pointing his wand at Lockhart and his left arm pointed straight at Lockhart as well.

Lockhart counted down from three, Snape took the first move, he stepped forward and pivoted so his right arm pointed at Lockhart, " **expelliarmus** ," a yellow ball of light shoot at Lockhart, who made no attempt to block it, he was knocked off his feet and thrown back through the air. The hall was dead silent, except for some hushed laughter and equally hushed inquiries after Lockhart's health.

After a short time, Lockhart pulled himself to his feet, barely a hair, or bit of ego out of place, he was still holding his wand somehow, he started to walk towards Snape. "An excellent idea to show them that Professor Snape, but, if you don't mind me saying, it was pretty obvious what you were going to do, and if I'd wanted to stop you, it would have been only too easy."

"Perhaps it would be prudent to teach the students to block unfriendly spells Professor," Snape said in his usual monotone.

This gives Lockhart pause for a moment, "An excellent suggestion, Professor Snape. Let's have a volunteer pair," he turned to his favourite victims, I mean students, "Potter, Weasley, how about you?" Harry made his way to the edge of crowd, Ron was going to follow when Snape intervened, saving either Harry or Ron from a lot of pain.

"Weasley's wand causes devastation with the simplest spells; we'll be sending Potter to the hospital wing in a matchbox. Might I suggest someone from my own house," Snape paused for a beat, and held up his hands to make the statement look merely like a throwaway thought, "Malfoy, perhaps." Not waiting for confirmation, Snape whirled and pointed and Draco and jerked his thumb over his shoulder before marching to the end of the stage, Draco made his way onto the stage; Lockhart paused for a moment before walking to the opposite end of the stage to Snape.

"Wands at the ready," Lockhart called, both Draco and Harry raised their wands in front of their faces.

"Scared Potter?" Draco asked smugly.

"You wish," Harry said slowly as he glared at his opponent, they flicked their wands to the side before turning, and walking off without bowing, both stopped and turned to face each other, they both took the same pose as Snape.

"On the count of three cast your charms to disarm your opponent, only to disarm we don't want any accidents here, one, two..." Draco jumped the gun, he sent a spell of white light at Harry, he said something, but it was lost in the roar of the spell, the spell knocked Harry over and sent him flying to the end of the stage, the Slytherin in the room laughed at Harry as he lay there.

Harry then jumped to his feet, his movements hindered slightly by the school robes, " **rictusempra** ," the tickling hex, rather than making Malfoy collapse in uncontrolled giggles like it should have instead just threw him back several feet, until he stopped at Snape's feet. The grumpy potions master rolled his eyes and pulled Draco to his feet, where he got back into the duelling position.

"I said disarm only," a nervous looking Lockhart called from behind Harry.

" **Serpensortia** ," Malfoy cast, shooting a dark green snake from his wand tip, the snake was about two metres long with dripping fangs and evil eyes, well, all snakes have evil eyes, like any reasonable creature Harry shied back from the obviously venomous snake.

"Don't move, Potter. I'll get rid of it for you," Snape said pushing Malfoy out the way and walking towards the serpent.

"Allow me Professor Snape," Lockhart said pushing past Harry, " **alarte ascendare** ," the snake shot 10 feet up into the air and landed very much alive, and very angry, in front of Justin Finch-Fletchley, a Hufflepuff student in our year, who almost fainted at the sight of the snake.

Then something weird happened, well weirder than normal, Harry started talking to the snake, he was slowly walking towards it talking in a hissing voice that was not his own and was talking in a language I didn't know. The snake turned towards Justin, reared itself, and hissed, the students near it stumbled backwards. Harry just kept speaking the harsh, hissing, echoing voice, then he stopped, blinked like he was coming out a trance and smiled bemusedly at the snake. A stony-faced Snape then sent a bolt of fire at the snake, which disintegrated on the spot and turned into little more than dust.

"Well, I think that's enough excitement for one day," Lockhart said, mopping his brow, Snape nodded distractedly in agreement, "dismissed." The crowd dispersed slowly, people peeling off in pairs or threes or fours, we lost John, and by extension Luna in the general hubbub, so afterwards a group of five of us, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Janet and I returned to the Common Room.

"Why didn't you tell us you were a Parselmouth earlier?" Janet asked, "I mean, we were discussing the matter," she sounded slightly hurt by having knowledge withheld from her.

"I didn't know, well, I did once set a python on my cousin at the zoo, but that was years ago, I'd forgotten about it."

"This is bad," Janet said as she absently twirled a lock of her hair around a finger, "not only does it lend itself to the idea that whatever is in the chamber is a serpent of some kind, maybe a drakon, I hope it's not. This also means that people are going to treat you differently, people are going to think that you're the heir, especially as it sounded like you were egging the snake on to attack Justin, who is muggleborn, so, say goodbye to most of your social status."

"Wait, what do you mean I was egging it on? You heard me, I was telling it not to attack."

"Harry, you're a Parselmouth, you switch to parseltongue as easily as I switch to Greek, you may not have realised it, but you were talking snake."

"Oh," Harry deflated slightly, just then Neville, Seamus and a group of other Gryffindor passed us, they kept a large distance between themselves and Harry, as though he was Skippy the Wonder horse the time he had an injured leg and wouldn't even let me near him. After they leave he speaks again, "so now everyone thinks I'm Slytherin's heir," he looked close to tears, I couldn't blame him, especially after Neville, he'd been so nice to Neville, we'd helped him find his voice and now he was shunning us.

"Exactly," Ron said pulling me from my melancholy, "and now the whole school's going to think you're his great-great-great grandson or something."

"But, I'm not, I, I can't be."

"Well," Janet said quietly, "statistically speaking, seeing as he lived a thousand years ago, and that the wizarding community isn't massive, there's a high chance that you, me and Ron are all related to him, it just depends on how strong his genetics are, and which genes got passed on."


	9. Chapter 9

The next few weeks went by quickly and without incident, just studying and being subtly shunned by acquaintances and people who I called friends. Slytherin meanwhile decided they like Harry and Janet, Harry because he was a Parseltongue and Janet by association, as she was a pure blood. However, they still shunned the other four of us, Hermione and I for muggle reasons, Ron because he's a Weasley and John for some reason or another related to his family history, a history he wouldn't talk about. In good news Janet, John, Drake and myself convinced the other demigods that Harry was not the heir, but some were still weary of him. So we found ourselves on the last day of term in the library on a lovely cloudy, snowy Scottish day studying. Well Hermione and Ron were studying, I was getting hyperactive from sitting still for so long, Harry was restlessly pretending to read. John had not been seen since before lunch, he had gone off to do something vague, and Janet was curled up in an armchair with her eyes closed, I think she might have been meditating or sleeping or casually reading everyone's minds, she looks the same when doing any of the three. Eventually Harry gave up the pretence of reading, put away his books, sighed, stood, and left. Instantly Janet was alert watching him go, she jerked her head in his general direction, I nodded and we discretely followed Harry. Janet, John and I had decided that it was not a good idea to let Harry be alone, to discourage any vigilantes from taking the rules into their own hands, so we had decided to follow Harry if he ever left anywhere by himself. We followed Harry out of library, past the suspicious Madam Pince, we passed Ginny Weasley who was scribbling in a small black diary; the stress of school had not treated her well, she looking pale and drawn, with deep black bags under her eyes and limp, lifeless hair. She looked like she had missed a few meals, and her eyes no longer sparkled happily, she looked older than she should have.

We followed Harry all through the school as he headed for the Common Room, the Gryffindor students were less weary around Harry than the other houses, he was their star seeker after all, and most of them had known him for one and a bit years, but they were still guarded at best. Suddenly, Harry stopped short and pressed himself against the wall just short of a corner, we stopped and pressed ourselves behind a buttress, we could hear a male voice drift around the corner, it was quiet, but I could still hear the words.

"So, anyway, I told Justin to hide up in our dormitory. I mean to say, if Potter's marked him down as his next victim, it's best he keep a low profile for a while," the voice was conspiratorial, I remembered him as a member of Hufflepuff, I wanted to correct them, tell them they were wrong, but with no evidence my words were just words.

"But why would he want to attack Justin?" This voice was a girl's, she was concerned and a little sceptical, it was good to hear that not everyone had taken leave of their senses.

"Justin let it slip to Potter that he was muggleborn."

"And you definitely think Potter's the Heir of Slytherin?" She sounded even more sceptical, this was good, the fear wasn't getting to her, gotta love Hufflepuff loyalty.

"Hannah, he's a Parselmouth, everyone knows that's the mark of a dark wizard," except it was also the sign of an up to fifth generation legacy of Hermes. "Have you ever heard of a decent one who could talk to snakes? They called Slytherin himself Serpent-tongue," his hushed voice became even quieter, and even darker, "remember what was written on the wall: Enemies of the Heir Beware. Potter had some sort of run-in with Filch, next thing we know, Filch's cat's attacked," except for the fact almost everyone has a run in with Filch at some point, "that first-year Creevey's been annoying Potter, then Creevey's attacked."

"He always seems so nice, though. And, after all, he is the one who made You Know Who disappear," she was sounding less sceptical, 'dammit, we can't argue Harry's side without revealing we were eavesdropping,' I think angrily to myself.

"That's probably why You Know Who wanted to kill him in the first place, didn't want another Dark Lord competing with him," I was angry with this guy, it took all my restraint to not go over there and shout my mental rant in his face. 'This guy is an idiot, as if Moldywarts would be able to tell if a baby was going to be evil, I mean even if he was evil, they would have the same goals, rid the magic world of muggles,' cue sudden idea, 'dammit, it was so obvious.'

I turned to Janet and tapped the side of my head in a gesture I hoped she'd understand, she frowned and then nodded, I soon felt the weird pushing sensation that was Janet's way of telling me she was in my head, 'I probably wouldn't have noticed if she didn't want me to.'

"No, you wouldn't have," came Janet's voice in my head, "now, what did you want to say?"

"What if the heir of Slytherin was Voldemort? They have nearly the same goals, Voldemort hates Harry, so has the most to gain from him being disgraced and hopefully expelled, and he's cheated death before so he can probably do it again."

"It is a possibility, we should keep our options open, and prove Harry's innocence, dammit, he's gone," Harry had vanished. He couldn't have gone to the common room without passing them or the other students, Hagrid was walking down another corridor, blocking our view, he was carrying a dead rooster of all things, and the other corridor contained McGonagall.

"This way," I said pulling her down the empty corridor, there was a branch several metres down on the left, if not we could ask McGonagall if she'd seen Harry, Hagrid would ask too many questions. Suddenly McGonagall was frog marching Harry down the corridor away from us, he had taken the left junction, "we should follow," I whispered Janet nodded in response, we walked down to the left junction, there lay Justin. He was lying next to two strange things. The first was a trail of spiders who were fleeing out the gap next to the pane of glass and out into the stormy night, I hadn't realised how late it was, and how stormy, it had been snowing earlier, but had turned into a blizzard in the couple of hours we had been in the library. The other weird thing was Nearly Headless Nick, who was floating in the air motionless two feet of the ground, he was just hanging there, paralysed as well.

"Your friend is in for it now," Filch said as he left the shadows, his appearance had almost given me a panic attack, he loved to lurk in the shadows, I think made him feel powerful, or he was just creepy. "Caught red handed, gonna be in Azkaban by tomorrow."

"Good evening Mr Filch," Janet said cheerfully, not sounding phased by the sudden appearance of the crazy caretaker, as she dragged me away.

"Good evening?" A bemused Filch said, he sounded confused that someone was polite to him and so the bitter old man was not sure how to respond.

"Come on, we've got to get to Dumbledore," Janet said as we started walking as quickly as we could without running in the direction of the current location of the headmaster's office, (I say currently because it sometimes moves). We walked through the corridors until we almost walked into Hagrid who was walking very quickly in the same direction as us.

"You 'eard as well then?" He asked seeing us, he was still holding that dead rooster.

"Why the rooster Hagrid?" I asked because that was not the usual thing you take to a headmaster.

"Second one killed this term, reckon it's either foxes or a Blood-Suckin' Bugbear, need Dumbledore's permission ter put a charm round the hen-coop."

"Someone or something is killing your roosters, not the hens?"

"Yer, jus' the roosters, 'ens were all fine."

* * *

"Hum, interesting," we had reached the headmaster's office the gargoyle gate was closed.

"Sherber' lemon," nothing happened, "I 'ate this thin', sherber' lemon," once again, nothing.

"Sherbet lemon," I said, the gargoyle moved out our way, revealing a giant eagle statue, we stepped into its arched wings and the it started rising and rotating, after it slowly turned one half turn we had arrived a large room with two floors. The bottom one was full of benches and bookshelves covered in silver magical instruments and weird devices and old looking books and a couple of brown paper sweet bags and the Sorting Hat on a stool. The upper layer held a desk covered in paper and a filing cabinet of some kind, on the walls hung sleeping portraits of old men and women, they looked like they were previous headmasters of the school, I recognised some of them from books, or chocolate frog cards. Dumbledore was talking to Harry next to a gilded perch, which had a pile of ashes underneath and a small bird in the ash.

"It wasn't 'arry, Professor Dumbledore," Hagrid called rushing forward.

"Hagrid," Dumbledore started, but was cut off by Hagrid.

"I was talkin' ter 'im jus' before that kid was found, it can't've bin 'im!"

"Hagrid," Dumbledore tried again.

"I'll swear ter it in front o' the Ministry o' Magic," Hagrid just kept talking, then he stopped, as if he couldn't open his mouth.

"Thank you whichever of you two did that," Dumbledore said in our direction, Harry looked surprised to see us there, "I do not think that Harry has attacked anyone."

Hagrid looked relieved, "you can talk again Hagrid, sorry about that," Janet said, Hagrid nodded.

"I'll, err, jus' wait outside then," he then walked over to the lift, we turned to leave as well, but Dumbledore called after us to stop.

"Miss Harker, Miss Smith, would you mind coming here for a moment?" It wasn't really a question, so the two of us went to stand next to Harry, "is there anything you'd like to tell me, anything at all?" He raised one bushy white eyebrow, as if he was expecting something.

Before we could answer Harry answered for us, "no Professor, nothing at all," Dumbledore didn't look convinced, he stared for a moment and then frowned slightly before suddenly smiling warmly.

"Well, off with you then, it's getting very late and you should be off to bed, me, I have lots of paperwork to do," we turned and left.

We held our silence until we reached the Common Room where we parted ways, Harry left us without a word and walked towards the dormitories, and Janet and I found a quiet corner to chat in, "that was very rude of him," Janet said quietly.

"Who? Harry, he's got a lot on his mind," Janet shook her head.

"Not Harry, Dumbledore, he tried to read our minds, but not Harry's," I was aghast, to think a teacher would just randomly search our minds like that, it was horrid feeling knowing that he could have found out all our secrets just like that. "I think he already read Harry's mind before we got there, I suppose it would make sense, to confirm that what he read from Harry was right, but he should have asked first."

I sighed and rubbed my tired eyes, it had been a long day, and the sound of the storm outside was not helping my mood. I'd always hated storms, they were so drab, all just shades of black, white and grey, it was dreadful for a child of Iris, it was an absence of colour, but I loved snow, the way it sparkled and shimmered and threw off the whole spectrum of colour when it was in the sun. It was at this moment that I remembered what day it was, it was the last day of term that made me brighten up, we'd be going back to the states tomorrow, we'd be going somewhere that wasn't quite so glum and dreary.


	10. Chapter 10

The next day, as expected was cold, and everything was covered in snow, people were rushing back and forth, carrying bags and brooms and owls and assorted other objects to the carriages that would take everyone to the train station. Of our little group only Harry, Ron, and Hermione were staying, along with only a few other people, like Draco, Crabbe, Goyle Neville, and the twins.

I don't think you are really going to be interested in my winter; it wasn't very interesting, it was very ordinary. My Dad and I stayed with my Grandparents in Hampshire (that's on the south coast for anyone who doesn't know, just north of the Isle of Wight), who had no idea about the magic world, or even my mother and the Gods. They are old and Anglican, so we celebrated Christmas together, it was fun, I hadn't seen my Grandparents in years, they were very happy I was at school in the UK, and that I was getting a 'proper British education,' and then Grandpa made us watch the Queen's speech.

* * *

When we got back to school we decided to find out what our friends had been up to, so the six of us were sitting in the library, just like we did the year before, John decided to start us off, "so, what did we miss?"

"Well, we used the polyjuice," Ron said, he was smiling over something, in fact he looked close to bursting out laughing, "Draco doesn't know who it was,

"I told you so," Janet said, frowned and continued.

"And Hermione turned into a literal cat person after using a cat hair," John, Janet and I started laughing, quietly so as not draw the ire of the librarians, librarians are terrifying.

"Also, last time it was opened, someone died and Hagrid got kicked out the school for it they thought it was his pet giant spider," Harry said, Ron shuddered, "I found an enchanted diary which showed me the memories of it, but someone stole it."

"Did it show you who died, or where?" Janet asked, "we could find out if a ghost or painting saw it," Harry shook his head, "did you see the body in the memory?"

"Briefly, for like two seconds," Harry said grimly.

"Was it half eaten or cut at all?" Janet sounded morbidly curious about the dead body.

"No, it looked like all colour had drained from a living person, but that was about it, but I couldn't make out any features," Janet nodded, but stayed quiet, she had a look on her face, a look which meant she was close to solving a puzzle, but only had one piece missing.

"So, everyone looking forward to the Quidditch tomorrow?" Ron asked changing the subject, but no-one answered him.

* * *

Nothing really happened until February when Lockhart decided to ruin the fourteenth by trying to boost everyone's morale, by having a massive Valentine's Day celebration. He had decorate the whole school in pink flowers, the Great Hall looked like Persephone went to town on it, the ceiling was this unnatural blue with randomly falling confetti coming from somewhere. But, the worst parts were Lockhart's robes, which were a shade of pink even I found ridiculously garish and the not quite as disagreeable, but no less irritating dwarves. Lockhart had hired several dozens of dwarves to dress up like Hallmark cupids and deliver Valentine's cards, messages, gifts, poetry and worst of all sing love songs, dwarves cannot sing love songs. At breakfast, the confetti was not an issue that could be dealt with, I just sat next to Janet who used a modified rain shield spell, but the dwarves were an issue, every five minutes one would pop up and deliver something to Janet, even Harry got a dreadful bit of poetry. I was rather sad until the end of the day when I received my Valentine's Day poem.

"Ehem," the dwarf said clearing his throat as he approached me, "are you Alice Smith?" I nodded in surprise, "right, I have a message to deliver, he cleared his throat again before beginning in a voice surprisingly clear for a dwarf,

"How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.  
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height  
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight  
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.  
I love thee to the level of everyday's  
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.  
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;  
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.  
I love thee with a passion put to use  
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.  
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose  
With my lost saints, I love thee with the breath,  
Smiles, tears, of all my life! And, if Gods choose,  
I shall but love thee better after death."

I recognised it as a poem by a muggle poet, I'd done it in English back in the States, and knew the Janet liked it, for some reason, I didn't really like poetry, but suddenly it made sense, poetry made sense, the dwarf turned and walked off, probably to deliver another message.

I then continued walking back to the Common Room, where I sat down next to Janet who was talking to Hermione.

"Hi Alice," Hermione said smiling at me, "you look surprised, what happened?"

"I had one of those dwarves deliver a message to me, and it wasn't meant for Janet," there had been a couple of embarrassing incidents when a dwarf had thought I was Janet.

Janet looked unable to contain her excitement, "oh tell me about it."

"It was one of those sonnets you love so much, it was the one that starts How do I love thee." Janet smiled widely.

"Oh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Sonnet 43, not the most creative title, but still a pretty good poem, I prefer Shakespeare's sonnets."

"So, what about your valentines Janet?" I asked my friend preventing her off from delivering a rambling speech about poetry; she glared at me before burying her head in her hands.

"Wait, valentines plural?" Hermione asked.

"Urgh, don't start," Janet muttered, "I've had twenty three today, well, twenty three individual ones, some joker sent me twelve, and the poetry was so bad I couldn't tell which were ironic."

"Twenty three?" Hermione asked, Janet nodded, "well, someone's popular."

"Did you send any Janet?" I asked, Janet froze like a rabbit in the headlights, Janet is a dreadful liar if caught off guard, "so, who's the lucky boy? or girl?" I added quickly.

Janet blushed furiously, "I'm not saying anything, Hermione were you one of the girls to send Lockhart a message," she asked trying to change the subject.

"I'm not saying anything either, what about you Alice?" I felt my cheeks warm up, I had sent a Valentine's message as well.


	11. Chapter 11

On the day of the fourth to last Quidditch match of the year Janet and I were making our way down from Gryffindor tower, we were running a bit late, but we weren't sure if we were going to the Quidditch. In one of the corridors we bumped into Harry, Ron and Hermione, Harry had one ear pressed to the wall.

"Is he hearing the voices again?" I asked Hermione very quietly, she nodded and then suddenly started.

"Harry," she shouted, everyone turned to face her, "I think I've just understood something, I've got to go to the library!" She started off in the direction of the library.

"Hermione," Janet called, Hermione stopped and turned, Janet walked over and handed her a hand mirror, "if I'm right you may need this, don't look directly at strange sounds," she said so quietly I don't think Ron and Harry heard, Hermione raised an eyebrow but nodded and thanked her before walking off.

"C'mon we'll be late," Ron said, he rushed off with Harry close behind, I looked over at Janet who shrugged and took off after them, I sighed and ran after my friends.

* * *

We only just reached the stands in time, but rather than players coming out on the pitch Dumbledore did, he pressed his wand to the side of his neck, "can I have your attention please? The match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff and all subsequent matches have been delayed until further notice, can all pupils please return to their Common Rooms please." A lot of talking started as he finished talking, I felt a tap on my shoulder, I turned to see, Professor Babbling the nice old lady who taught Ancient Runes. She was very old, with a face wrinkled and gnarled like tree bark, she had white hair and grey eyes, despite her age she was still very mobile, even if she did have to lean on a cane sometimes, she had apparently been teaching for about seventy years, according to rumour.

"Dumbledore asked me to fetch you," she said in her thin crackly voice, "he asked me to take you the infirmary, it's a shame that the chamber's been opened again, hoped we saw the last of it with death of that Myrtle girl, when was that? Oh it must have been fifty years ago now."

* * *

We left the old women to her memories and walked to the infirmary, where we found Hermione lying on a bed, she had been petrified, she had been frozen in a walking position, with Janet's hand mirror in one hand that was stretched out in front of her. I let out a small cry when I saw her and rushed to her side, where I was of course unable to do anything except try and move the hair from her face, she was cold, but not room temperature, she wasn't dead. The mirror wasn't pointed at her, it was positioned to look at an angle, it would show anything to her right, she had probably been using Janet's mirror to look around a corner when she was petrified.

"Oh Janet," I said sad and terrified because my friend had been attacked I couldn't help, I could do nothing but sit there and not cry, "what are we going to do?"

Janet was her usual calm self, she was standing there, with one hand gently stroking Hermione's hair in thought, "this confirms my theory, I just wish it had been proven by a different method."

I was suddenly very angry at my best friend, she had callously gambled with a friend's life, true the gamble had paid off, but it was still a dreadful thing to do, "you knew!" I shouted, "you knew what it is and still let her go to the library! You could have told her! You should have stopped her!"

Janet looked down, I heard her sniffle faintly, she was sad, it was rare for Janet to be sad, "I had a hypothesis, but I could not prove it, but I did save Hermione's life. If I hadn't given her the mirror she would be dead, but that is still no justification for me to have withheld information that could have prevented this." I was taken aback by this, Janet rarely admitted fault or that she was wrong, in fact, this was the first time since Idaho. I sighed. It's very hard to stay mad at Janet, she's like a small child, well smaller child, when she's sad, I walked over and gave her a hug. She perked up and smiled weakly at me before having a look of realisation, she clicked her fingers, and as usual, a shower of multi-coloured sparks fell from her hand, but disappeared before reaching the floor. "Alice, do you remember what Professor Babbling said?" I shook my head, I hadn't really paid the old eccentric much attention, "she mentioned the last time the chamber was opened someone called Myrtle died," Janet exclaimed, I had a sudden epiphany.

"Moaning Myrtle, she was the last victim, let's go ask her if she knows where the entrance is," I was almost happy, I almost felt helpful.

* * *

When we reached Myrtle's bathroom it was getting late, we had to go back to the Common Room to listen to some new rules, after which the teachers had been watching us like hawks, it had taken a very cooperative Peeves to escape. It was after lights out, we knew if we were caught we would be in trouble, but we didn't mind, we had to save Hermione and the other muggleborns, myself included, from the monster.

"Janet, what is the monster?" I whispered as we left upon realising I still didn't know.

"A basilisk, either a giant basilisk, in which case we're in trouble, because it's like a thousand years old and very powerful, or a common basilisk in which case we're in even more trouble because it would be a whole nest of them. It's more likely the first because a nest of basilisks are rather noticeable," I shuddered at the thought of a nest of basilisks, or just one giant basilisk.

Myrtle's bathroom was almost unchanged from the last time we were there, except now Hermione's cauldron wasn't occupying one of the stalls.

"Myrtle, Myrtle are you there?" I asked at my surroundings having no clue where the grumpy ghost was.

"Yes, of course I'm here," she practically shouted in my ear, "where else would I be, I'm bound to that toilet, that very stall where I died. Now what do you want?"

"Myrtle, we wanted to ask you a few questions," I said as diplomatically as possible, Myrtle moved away from me so she wasn't in my personal space, she seemed to almost coo in surprise, "you don't have to answer if you don't want to, but we'd like to ask you some questions about your death," Myrtle's mood flipped again.

"Do you know how insensitive that is?" Myrtle screeched, "how rude? A death is a sensitive topic, is this a sick joke, asking about death is not like asking about the weather. Why I should call the teachers on you right now, but seeing as you took an interest in me I'll let you leave without calling the teachers."

We quickly left the bathroom, and scampered back to the Common Room before Myrtle changed her mind, 'why must she be so disagreeable, this could save lives,' I thought to myself, as we neared the Common Room, Janet reached out and squeezed my hand reassuringly, 'wait, are you reading my thoughts.' Although I couldn't be sure in the low light, I think Janet blushed.


	12. Chapter 12

That night I had a dream, demigod dreams usually are either prophetic, or show us what was going on elsewhere, mine was neither. I was sitting in a cave, it was a very nice cave, it was plushly decorated, with large padded mahogany and black leather chairs around a large mahogany table, there were black sofas on a black rug with a lacquered black coffee table in the centre, the walls were lined with mahogany bookshelves. Each book was black and of identical size, but that meant nothing for a magical book, for example, Janet's magical book that looked like the Odyssey, I knew it was magical because she'd turn the page but never get closer to the end. Suddenly a figure appeared in the centre of the room, not like apparate or portkey suddenly there, I mean I was looking at the spot he was standing and suddenly he was there. He was tall, broad shouldered and robed in black, which meant I couldn't see any features; he was carrying a massive scythe with a blade so black it seemed to absorb all light that got near it. He must have been the cave's owner, he pushed back the hood to reveal a handsome and regal face that was the colour of mahogany, and he had black hair that tumbled down his head in an unruly style.

"Good," his voice was deep and yet soothing, it was full of power and strength, I realised that despite fact the only Gods I had met was the weakened Mr D and my mother, who never tried to impress her own children, he must be a God. "I finally reached one of you through the wards," I realised he was addressing me; I got down on one knee, so as not to seem rude, "don't do that, my time is limited, I have no time for formalities. Tomorrow you will find a Horcrux, an object that contains a portion of someone's soul, you will know it when you see it, the Horcrux belongs to a person who should have died over twelve years ago. I already have someone else looking for them, but he's too slow, this Horcrux is the source of all your troubles this year. Destroy it so I may have a portion of his soul to torment." I then realised who he was, the scythe, collecting souls, he was Thanatos, the God of death. My vision faded and I woke up, it was morning, light was streaming through the window, I got up and dressed myself before heading off to breakfast, I had to find Janet.

* * *

I found Janet in the Common Room, she was waiting for me, she smiled as I approached her, her smile faded when she saw my frown, I tapped the side of my head and she nodded, I felt Janet's mind enter mine, I showed her my memory of Thanatos, "a Horcrux, are you sure that's what he said?" She asked in my mind, she sounded alarmed, angry and scared, the thing with talking between minds is that you can't hide your emotions when talking.

'Yeah, you saw the memory.'

"There's only one person crazy enough to try that, the man who apparently has sacrificed most of his soul to escape death," I thought about it, she was talking about Voldemort, or in English, death's flight, "exactly, he's back, again."

After breakfast Janet and I, now accompanied by John went to the infirmary, at the infirmary we found Ron and Harry trying to get in as well, but they were being blocked by a very stern Madam Pomfrey.

"There's no point in talking to a petrified person, she won't hear a word you're saying," the middle age matron said, Madam Pomfrey was a medium height women with shortish brown hair and piercing green eyes set in a face which made her look like an owl. She was wearing a nurse's uniform typical from world war documentaries and which was now rather outdated and almost humorous.

Ron shifted his weight uncomfortably under her piercing gaze, he looked very tired, "we know that, Madam Pomfrey, it's just, well, you see, we thought, maybe, we could be with her for a bit. She's our friend, you see, and even if she can't hear us I mean, it can't hurt, can it?" He looked so hopelessly lost that even Madam Pomfrey softened, she gave all five of us the once over.

"Very well then, but be quick about it," she ushered all five of us inside before wandering off to deal with her other patients, once inside Ron picked up a get well soon card from Lockhart, he looked ready to say something when Janet glared at him and he put the card back down and picked up the hand mirror.

"Wish you were here, Hermione, we need you. Now more than ever," Harry suddenly stopped his sad little speech as the light reflected in the hand mirror glinted on something in Hermione's closed hand. It looked like paper, Harry gently took the crumpled piece of paper from Hermione's hand, it appeared to have been torn from a book. Harry quickly stuffed the paper in his pocket at the sound of approaching feet, and then Madam Pomfrey entered the room.

"Right, time's up, please leave, I must look after my patients," we all hurriedly said our goodbyes and left, passing Filch and Hagrid who were carrying a stretcher bearing another victim. The victim was under a cloth, but was probably alive if they had been brought here, they appeared to have been holding a glass before they were paralysed, from the size of the person under the sheet, they were in our year, give, or take one year.

* * *

We walked away from the infirmary and found one of the numerous empty corridors, it was a mildly sunny Saturday, so people were mostly outside, or holed up in the library studying for tests, I stopped the group and looked around to make sure we hadn't been seen.

"Right then, what do we do now? Because the teachers aren't going to do anything, especially with Dumbledore suspended," we heard at breakfast of Dumbledore's suspension, which was worrying to say the least, I looked meaningfully at Janet who sighed before starting to speak, but she was cut off by Ron.

"So, the heir isn't Hagrid, we went to visit him last night to see if what Harry saw in the memory was right, if Hagrid had opened the chamber, he hadn't and the giant sp-spider wasn't the monster."

"Well, we already knew that," I said, I hadn't believed it for a second, I saw three disbelieving gazes, I shrugged and continued, "you saw Hagrid get arrested, he was not proven, it was just pure-blood prejudice. The spider couldn't have done it for a very simple reason, spiders have to bite to inject their venom, well, no victims have puncture wounds that would suggest a giant spider," I looked at Janet again who picked up where I left off.

"The creature is a giant basilisk," Janet started.

"Die Immortalus," John cursed as slowly massaged the bridge of his nose.

"A very ancient one," Janet continued, "probably about up to ten metres long, one to two metres in diameter, its venom is highly toxic, and its gaze can kill if seen directly or paralysis if seen indirectly. That's why no-one died, Mrs Norris saw a reflection on the floor, Colin through the camera's lens, Justin through Nearly Headless Nick, and Hermione in my mirror. The reason that Hagrid's cockerels have been murdered is that the heir knows as well as I do that the call of a cockerel can kill a Basilisk."

"Well, we need a cockerel then," Harry said, "wait, how is a giant murderous snake getting through the school without being seen?"

"I haven't worked that bit out yet," Janet said quietly, "what did Hermione's note say?" In the excitement of finding the note and everything I forgot about the note, Harry reached into his pocket and pulled out the bit of paper, "times must be dire if Hermione is tearing up books."

"Of the many fearsome beasts that roam our land, none is more deadly than the Basilisk. Capable of living for hundreds of years, instant death awaits any who meet this giant serpent's eye. Spiders flee before it and only the crowing of the rooster can kill it. Oh, and I think Hermione worked out how it gets around the castle, pipes, it's in the plumbing."

"Of course, that's why Harry hears it in the walls, it makes sense now, although I think we'll need a bigger plunger," John laughed, but Ron, Harry and Janet just stared at me like I had an extra head, got to love making Jaws references around those three, at least John got it.

"Now we just need to find the entrance," Harry said, "Aragog said the girl was found in a bathroom."

"It's Myrtle," Janet said, "Babbling mentioned her when she went off into her own little world while we were talking to her."

"Wait, who's Babbling?" Harry asked.

"Professor Babbling is the longest serving teacher who still works at the school, except Binns," Janet said, "we already asked Myrtle, she threatened to call the teachers."

"Well, if we present a convincing argument she might help us," John said hopefully.

Suddenly McGonagall's magically amplified voice echoed through the hallways, "all students are to return to their house dormitories at once. All teachers to the second floor corridor. Immediately." We all looked at each other before heading in the direction of the second floor corridor.


	13. Chapter 13

When we arrived Snape, McGonagall, Pomfrey, Flitwick and Filch were already present, they were looking at a section of walling which we couldn't see, but whatever it was had almost shocked an expression on to Snape's face.

"As you can see," McGonagall said sadly, "the Heir of Slytherin has left another message. Our worst fear has been realized. A student has been taken by the monster into the Chamber itself. I'm afraid we shall have to send the students home. I'm afraid; this is the end of Hogwarts." The teachers blanched, Madam Pomfrey looked close to tears.

Suddenly Lockhart arrived in a flurry of orange and gold robes, "so sorry, dozed off, what have I missed?"

"Just the man," Snape said in his usual deadpan, "a girl has been snatched by the monster, Lockhart. Your moment has come at last," Lockhart looked like he was going to be sick.

"M-my m-m-moment," his self-control had totally left him.

"Weren't you saying just last night that you've known all along where the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is?" Snape asked in a deadpan that almost sounded sarcastic, he raised one eyebrow in the faint torchlight.

Lockhart's mouth moved for a while before any sound came out, "That settles it. We'll leave it to you to deal with the monster, Gilderoy. Your skills, after all, are legend." McGonagall said in an equally deadpan way as Snape.

"V-very well. I'll, I'll be in my office, getting, getting ready," his usual smile returned to his face, but it looked forced, he then turned and quickly walked off, 'he's going to be as useful as chocolate teapot.'

"The rest of us should go and inform the students what has happened," McGonagall said to the remaining teachers, who nodded in agreement.

"Who is it the monster's taken, Minerva?" Madam Pomfrey asked.

"Ginny Weasley," McGonagall said quietly, Ron collapsed, he was only prevented from hitting the floor by John and I catching him, McGonagall sounding genuinely sad, she then turned, and dismissed the teachers, after they left we emerged from our hiding places and walked over to the wall.

"Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever," John reads aloud, Ron stumbled and almost collapsed again.

"This is totally out of the heir's usual patterns," Janet mused, "there has to be a reason."

"She knew something, Janet," She'd found out something about the Chamber of Secrets, that's why she was taken, I mean, she was," Ron stopped and corrected himself, "is a pure-blood. There can't be any other reason."

"I don't think so," Janet said as she absently tried to get stray hairs out of her face, "Hermione found something and the Basilisk only paralysed her, unless," Janet suddenly trailed off, she had an idea she didn't want to share.

"C'mon, let's go see Lockhart," Harry said grimly. "He may be a brainless git, but he's going to try and get into the Chamber, we can tell him what we know."

"Harry, do you think there's any chance at all she's not, you know," Ron sounded broken and close to tears.

"She'll be fine, everything will come out well in the end," Janet said reassuringly, I realised that she had said nothing about her being alive, but Ron hadn't noticed, he smiled at her, a warm and genuine smile in this, such a dark day. "You guys go get Lockhart, we'll meet you at Myrtle's bathroom," Harry and Ron nodded and walked off in the direction of Lockhart's office. When they were out of earshot Janet started talking again, "John, you are in charge of the rescue effort, in case we need one, if we're not back by daybreak go to Snape." I was shocked, even if he knew, this was still Snape, "and tell him everything, then gather all the demigods in the school and lead them to the chamber. If it requires a Parselmouth then the children of Hermes can help there, whatever happens this Basilisk needs to be stopped. You will come with us to the bathroom, but you won't come to the chamber until tomorrow." John nodded, it was a sound back up plan, "good, let's go, and may Nike bless us," we ran off in the direction of the bathroom.

We wait outside the bathroom nervousness making our ADHD even worse, until, eventually Harry and Ron arrived, practically dragging Lockhart, "he was trying to leave," was the only explanation Ron gave.

As a group we entered Myrtle's bathroom, Lockhart being forced forward, Myrtle was floating around the room, "Who's there? Oh..." she then smiled at Harry and continued flirtily, "hello, Harry. What do you want?"

"To ask you how you died," I waited for Myrtle to lose it, but she didn't, instead she smiled.

"Oooooh, it was dreadful, it happened right here, in this very cubicle. I'd hidden because Olive Hornby was teasing me about my glasses, I was crying, and then I heard somebody come in."

"Who was it Myrtle?" Harry asked excitedly.

Myrtle suddenly got very angry, "I don't know! I was distraught!" Myrtle calmed down before continuing, "but they said something funny, a kind of made-up language. And, I realized it was a boy speaking. So, I unlocked the door, to tell him to go away, and, I died," she choked up, about ready to cry before stopping herself.

"Just like that? How?"

"No idea, one minute I'm crying my eyes out, the next a guy in a suit said i had unfinished business and sent me here as a ghost, I just remember seeing a pair of great big yellow eyes. Over there..." she pointed at the giant central column, which was ringed with taps and sinks, Myrtle burst out crying and dove down the toilet.

We walked over to the column, the sinks looked normal, we looked at each tap until Ron announced triumphantly, "ah ha, got it," we rushed over to see a sink with a snake inscribed in it faintly.

"Well, ask it to open Harry," Janet said her eyes shining from excitement at the discovery.

"Um, open, please," Harry said hesitantly, then he blinked once and started hissing at it, the column opened up, it split into eight pieces and slid to the walls, leaving a massive hole, John left in the commotion, "hey, where'd John go?" Harry asked, he sounded angry at John's desertion.

"He's going to arrange a rescue party if we don't return," Janet said as she handed me a bracelet, "Harry, as it for stairs," Harry nodded and hissed again, stone stairs slid out from the wall.

Lockhart clapped his hands together, "excellent Harry, good work. Well then, I'll just be going. There's no need for me..." he trailed off as Janet glared at him.

"Yes there is, you are going to be our canary, go down there fraud and light a light when you reach the bottom, you can cast lumos correct?" Lockhart nodded slowly and gulped before walking down the steps with his wand in his hand. A short while later a faint light was lit at the bottom, "I'll go first to stop Lockhart doing anything stupid," Janet led the way down the long spiral staircase, on the way down we passed the entrances to several side tunnels, probably leading to everywhere on the school site.


	14. Chapter 14

The corridor at the bottom was long and echoey, it was made of old stone, stones that looked older than the castle upstairs, it looked close to collapse in some places, everything was wet and slick, there was the occasional squeak of a rat or mouse and the sounds of dripping or running water. Surprisingly the only bad smells were of stagnant water, not sewage, these pipes must be separate to the main school sewage system, the whole thing looked creepy in Lockhart's flickering orange lumos. Harry disarmed Lockhart to prevent the fraud from doing anything, Janet raised her hand, a bright white light rose from Janet's upturned palm and hovered above her head. "Any sign of movement; close your eyes immediately," Janet warned them, we started walking, and walking, and walking, after about thirty minutes I hear, and feel something crunch under my foot, I look down at a shattered rat skull, the ground was littered with the tiny skeletons.

"Lovely," I muttered as I carefully pick my way through the rat graveyard.

"What's that up ahead?" Ron asked pointing at something in the gloom, Janet sent the lumos over to light it.

"That looks like a snake," Lockhart squealed, squeezing his eyes shut, it was indeed a snake, or rather the shed skin of a snake, it was at least eight metres long.

"Bloody hell. Whatever shed this must be twenty feet long, or more," Ron said, Lockhart fainted, "real lion heart this one," Ron knelt next to the wizard.

"He's not unconscious," Janet said.

Quick as a flash Lockhart leapt to his feet, grabbing Ron's wand as he did, "The adventure ends here, boys and girls! But don't fret, the world will know our story. How I was too late to save the girl, how you four tragically lost your minds at the sight of her mangled body. I'll even bind a limited edition in this snake skin, say goodbye to your memories," Lockhart pointed Ron's wand at Janet and me, Janet raised her hand, " **obliviate**!" The light of the spell hit Lockhart in the stomach, he was thrown backwards and into the side of the tunnel, he slumped to the ground, he looked unconscious.

"Now he's unconscious," Janet said, I don't know if Janet cast a spell or if Lockhart's spell genuinely backfired, she walked over to the teacher, just then the tunnel rumbled and shook, and a wall of rock fell between our two groups, leaving Harry and I staring at a wall of rock, "Alice? Alice are you there?" I heard the moment everything stopped shaking, Janet's distressed shouts sounded distant through the rock.

"Yeah I'm here with Harry, have you got Ron and Lockhart?" I shouted at the rock, " **lumos** ," a cheerful rainbow light hovered in front of me.

"Yeah, Ron took a small pebble to the head and is out cold, I'll see about moving the rock, you guys carry on, we'll catch up or wait for John."

"Right," I called, I turned to Harry, "well, just you and me." I tried to smile, but the situation looked bleak, we didn't have our best witch, and the live bait had probably wiped his own memory.

"We'll be fine," Harry said sounding confident, I chose that moment to activate Janet's sword. We started walking down the tunnel; Harry looking for movement, I was looking for cave-ins. After another half hour of walking, we arrived at giant double doors with twin serpents on them, Harry hissed at them and they opened.

* * *

The next room was large and cavernous, it was like the one we walked down into, there was water dripping from the darkness far above. There was a platform on one side, about one metre above the large central puddle, there was also a mound of bones of all kinds, ranging from rat to person to house elf, at the far end of the room was a giant stone face. On the platform lay the still body of Ginny Weasley, she was clutching a book, Harry rushed forward, he put an arm under her back and lifted her into a seating position, her head lolled, she was as pale as a corpse.

"C'mon Ginny, don't be dead, wake up, wake up," he shouted.

"She won't wake up," a male voice said, suddenly a figure appeared, he was in a school uniform, he was about seventeen, he had a prefect badge, he was handsome and tall, with long, for a boy, perfect arranged black hair and green eyes. He was blurry around the edges, like a ghost, or a memory.

"Voldemort I do presume," I said glaring at the teen.

He clapped his hands, "well done, well done, I am surprised, as far as I can tell no-one else has made the distinction before, except Dumbledore."

"Wait, you're, Tom Riddle," Harry said, "you framed Hagrid," he shouted, realising what happened.

"Yes, I almost felt about that once, he wasn't bad, for a halfling, he was remarkably good company, even if he doesn't have two brain cells to rub together," he smiled.

"You're feeding on her soul," I accused, it seemed like the only way a memory could exist like this, "you're the diary, if destroy the diary we destroy you."

"Yes, I am feeding on the filthy blood traitor and I would wish you luck destroying the diary, magic has no effect on it, neither will your goblin sword, of course if your friend the daughter of Hecate was here, she might be able to do something, Greek magic has its own rules, but she isn't, I trapped her." He was suddenly holding two wands, "lose something," he'd taken my wand and Harry's as well, "of course, I can't do magic without a fully corporeal form, but now neither can you."

Suddenly a loud eerie cry echoed through the tunnel and Fawkes the phoenix appeared in all his flaming glory, he dropped something on a relatively dry patch; it was the Sorting Hat.

"The Sorting Hat?" I asked out of confusion.

"Good to see you, now can someone pick me up before I get soaked," the hat said, I picked up the talking mind reading hat, "Dumbledore sends his regards Tommy," the hat said glaring as well as a hat can glare.

"Don't call me Tommy you senile waste of cloth," Voldemort shouted, the hat smiled, then Voldemort laughed a cruel laugh, "this is what Dumbledore sends his defender! A songbird and an old hat!"

"Well, that was a phoenix, phoenix tears are rather useful," I muttered, the Hat smiled and winked at me.

Voldemort turned to the giant head and spoke in Parseltongue, the statue's mouth opened and a giant snake slithered out, "Let's match the powers of Lord Voldemort, Heir of Salazar Slytherin, against the famous Harry Potter, shall we?"

"Ah shut up Tommy," the hat shouted, it did not seem to be in a good mood, I passed the hat to Harry, Voldemort called something in Parseltongue and the snake rose from its coils, we turned and ran.

"Parseltongue won't save you now, Potter, the Basilisk only obeys me." We ran, I had to slow to keep pace with Harry, as we ran I could hear the sound of scales scrape on slick stones get closer, I looked at the wall, the Basilisk's shadow was about to strike. I tackled Harry to the side as the Basilisk slammed itself into the ground where we had been standing only moments earlier. Then Fawkes screeched, I looked at the shadows to see the phoenix attacking the Basilisk, which roared in a pain, Fawkes called out in victory and swooped away the shadow Basilisk was shaking its head, as though it couldn't see.

"You can look now," the hat said, I cautioned a glance to the Basilisk, who was looking around with now eyes that were now merely lumps of bloody flesh.

"Harry, it's blind," Harry turned to face the Basilisk, which then turned to face us.

"Fools, think you're safe? It can still hear," Riddle shouted at us from the other side of the room, I grabbed Harry and ran into the tunnel we came in through, the Basilisk crashed after us, much slower now, I had to practically drag Harry along, before getting an idea, I pulled him into an alcove. The Basilisk slithered past us, it then turned and 'looked' straight at us, 'he can smell me' I panicked, I picked up a rock and threw it in the darkness, the Basilisk roared and chased after us, we ran back into the room with Ginny, Voldemort was worryingly solid, Ginny was worryingly pale.

"Yes, Potter, the process is nearly complete. In a few minutes, Ginny Weasley will be dead, and I will cease to be a memory. Lord Voldemort will return very much alive." Just then the Basilisk re-entered the room, Harry clambered up a statue, I ran to the side, hoping to disorientate the monster by having two sounds, the Basilisk hesitated and roared. The hat shouted something to Harry, who reached into the hat and pulled out a silver sword with a ruby in the hilt, it looked Goblin made, like Janet's swords, he then slashed at the monster, which roared, then Harry did some stupid, he jumped onto the Basilisk and slid down its back. He stood there in the middle of the room, waiting with his sword raised, his form was terrible, but that is to be expected of someone who's probably never held a real sword before, I was too far away to help, I ran forward, hoping to help my friend. The Basilisk struck, fangs bared and dripping. Harry, by the looks of it marshalling his last strength, drove the sword upwards into the mouth of the Basilisk. The Basilisk roared in pain and slammed about wildly, Harry screamed in pain, I stopped next to him to I see a fang in his arm his robes slowly soaking in his blood, the Basilisk hissed weakly once before collapsing.

Voldemort, now almost totally solid applauded, "bravo Potter, you sacrificed yourself to kill a snake, yes Potter, you're dying, it's remarkable, isn't it? How quickly the venom of the Basilisk penetrates the body? If you have any final words, Potter, you'd best speak them now. I'd guess you have little more than a minute to live," Harry winced as he yanked the fang free, the skin of his forearm turning grey, Voldemort then started celebrating his victory as Harry stumbled over to Ginny, I helped guide his steps, when he reached her he collapsed to his knees."So ends the famous Harry Potter, on his knees in the Chamber of Secrets. Defeated at last by the Dark Lord he so unwisely challenged, you'll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry." I turned from Voldemort to see Harry pick up the diary, Voldemort looked decidedly scared, "Funny, isn't it?" He laughed nervously; he was edging closer, "the damage a silly little book can do? Especially in the hands of a silly little girl," Harry lifted the fang, "What are you doing? No! Stop," he lunged for Harry, I tackled Voldemort, causing him to stumble as he tried to get out my way, Harry stabbed the fang into the diary, which instantly started to spurt ink, Voldemort screamed in pain and sank to all fours, flickering in and out of existence, faster and faster before he just stopped being there. Two wands clattered to the ground, which I quickly picked up, don't want to lose those.


	15. Chapter 15

Ginny coughed, colour returning to her cheeks, then a high, eerie cry, "Fawkes," I called; the phoenix swooped down and landed on Harry.

"You were brilliant, Fawkes, I just wasn't quick enough," he said stroking the phoenix.

"Harry," Ginny said weakly, "it was me! But, I swear, I didn't mean to, Riddle made me, he wrote to me, took me over I didn't even know whose diary it was. I found it inside my cauldron, the day we all went to Diagon Alley and Harry. You're hurt," Ginny trailed off.

"Ginny, you need to get yourself out," Harry was struggling for consciousness, 'come on Fawkes, now or never "follow the chamber, you'll find Ron." The phoenix hopped down from Harry's shoulder and landed on his arm, I looked on in excitement as fat, pearly droplets fell from Fawkes' eyes and landed in the Basilisk wound, the flesh regrew, and the venom was purged from his system, the skin turning pink once again.

"The tears of the phoenix can cure any ill," I muttered in excitement.

"Of course, Dumbledore told me phoenix tears have healing powers." He looked up and smiled at Ginny, "it's all right, Ginny, it's over, it's just a memory."

"What am I? Chopped liver?" I asked causing the other two to laugh, I then helped Ginny to her feet, "easy there Ginny, lean on me, you just got attacked by a soul vampire, you need my help," Harry looked like he was going to protest, but I cut him off, "Harry you can barely hold yourself up, let alone Ginny."

* * *

We walked back along the tunnel, we were silent, Ginny was barely clinging to consciousness, and Harry looked close to collapsing himself, when we reached the other three we found Janet standing guard over Ron and Lockhart, she was putting the finishing touches on her repairs to the tunnel, "what happened to you?" She asked smiling mischievously; I expect she already knew.

"Voldemort and his pet snake," Harry said tiredly, he sat down, I set Ginny down next to him. Ron suddenly started from where he was lying, as if reacting to the sound of Voldemort's name.

"Ginny," he cried rushing over to her, as quickly as he could in his injured state, he hugged his sister, "You're alive, I can't believe it."

"I'm going to be expelled, I just know it!" I laughed, she was a mini Hermione.

"Remind you of anyone?" Ron asked Harry who laughed tiredly.

"Where's Lockhart?" I asked, Ron turned and pointed at Lockhart, who was humming happily to himself and playing pat-a-cake with the wall.

"His Memory Charm backfired, hasn't got a clue who he is. Janet and I keep having to stop him wandering off, he's a danger to himself."

Lockhart turned and smiled at us, not his usual flirting smile, but a big, broad, childish smile, "hello," he said cheerfully, "odd sort of place, this, isn't it? Do you live here?"

"No," Ron said, frowning at the man, who shrugged and returned to his humming.

"Well then," Janet said, "let's get going, before John sends his rescue party," I looked over at Harry and Ginny, who were asleep, Janet clicked her fingers, and their sleeping bodies suddenly started levitating.

"Wow," Lockhart said gawking, "it's like magic."

* * *

We made our slow trek back up to Myrtle's bathroom, when we arrived we saw Dumbledore, I was overjoyed to see his return, McGonagall, Snape and Madam Pomfrey were waiting, "well done, I take it the Basilisk is dead?" Dumbledore said, "we were about to go deal with it ourselves, but you beat us to it, so that's where Fawkes went," he said as Fawkes spiralled out the hole and landed on his shoulder. I was rather surprised; I thought he'd sent Fawkes in to help us. "How are they Poppy?" He ask Madam Pomfrey, who was flitting around the two unconscious pupils.

"Mr Potter is simply exhausted, Miss Weasley, we will see, I've never seen anything like this before, it's like something tried to pull out her soul, we may have to refer her to Saint Mungo's, I'll see how she is in the morning."

"Well Lockhart, it seems your reputation is deserved after all," Snape said to Lockhart; he looked genuinely surprised.

"Who's the geezer with the big nose?" He whispered to me.

"Lockhart has had a spell backfire on him, he tried to use Ron's broken wand to wipe our memories," Janet said, the teachers glared at Lockhart. "Professor Lockhart has wiped his own memories, he was trying to cover up the fact he was a fraud, who claimed the work of other well-meaning wizards as his own, he would wipe their memories of their own actions, considering how bad he is at magic, I would guess they were left catatonic, or in Saint Mungo's mental unit."

"So he now has had a dose of his own medicine," Snape said, he almost sounded happy at the man's demise.

"Well, I think the three of you should get to bed, we'll take Mr Potter and Miss Weasley to the infirmary," Madam Pomfrey said.

"Indeed, I think a celebratory banquet is in order," Dumbledore said, smiling under his beard, his eyes twinkling happily, he picked up the hat from where it was sleeping on "especially seeing as the mandrakes are finally ready."

We didn't have to be told twice, we headed back to Gryffindor tower, where I realised something, "dammit, we forgot John," I said, turning in the direction of Ravenclaw's Common Room, Janet put a hand on my shoulder.

"He already knows," she then lead me back into the Common Room, we then collapsed into bed.

* * *

I dreamed again, I was back in Thanatos' lair, he was sitting on one of the sofas, his scythe was leaning on the coffee table, he had removed his cloak to reveal large black wings. There was a television on the wall now, he was watching Madam Pomfrey and her healers rushing around, trying to save Ginny. "She is going to die without intervention, this is your reward, I will repair the damage done to her soul," he raised a hand, a ball of black energy appeared and sped into the television; the ball appeared in the room and sank into her body, the healers stopped and stared at Ginny. "You did good young demigod, you have my gratitude, and this advice, the golden treasure, that will heal her wounds, is in the land where nobody fooled the blinded monster, in the sea of mysteries that even muggles and mortals notice," with that I was thrown into a different dream.

I was on a cruise ship, it was inhabited by blank eyed muggles, who were wandering its decks, ignoring the monsters who were everywhere I looked. Suddenly I was pulled into a room, it was nicely decorated, there was a massive desk, and a shrouded, something, under a cloth, a dining table and chairs, and doors that probably led off to a bedroom and bathroom. At the end of the room was Luke, he was flanked by two massive men, they were at least two and a half metres tall, cloaked in leather armour and carrying spears taller than themselves, they were covered in brown hair so dense it looked like fur. Luke was talking to a magic screen of some kind, it felt weird, it wasn't normal magic, or Greek magic.

"You planted the spike?" Luke asked the silhouette on the screen.

"Yes," the voice was distorted, "it will take a while to take effect, I apologise for the delay, I have been, indisposed and so unable to leave."

"That's okay, as long as the spike has been planted, that's all that matters."

"Glory to Lord Kronos," the voice said.

"Yes, glory to him," Luke replied, the silhouette nodded and vanished, he turned to the covered shape, he then whirled to face roughly in my direction, he smiled, looking so much like pre-quest Luke, "what do you think Alice? Will you join me?"

"Why the Hades would I do that?" I shouted, unsure if he could hear me.

"You're treated as a second class demigod, all children of minor Gods and Goddesses are, but they're not, Janet and Drake are two of the most powerful demigods in the world, yet, where's Hecate's cabin? Where's Iris' cabin, or Janus, Nike, Thanatos, Morpheus, Persephone, Hestia, the Winds, even Hades is ignore and he's one of the big three, yet both Artemis and Hera have cabins, but lack children. It's unfair, the Gods ignore us, they say it's so they don't get too attached when we inevitably become one of Hades' shades, but it's because they fear us, they fear one of us will get a mind of our own and realise there are alternatives."

"You're crazy, it may not be fair, but I like the arrangements, I get to be in a cabin with my friends, the Hermes cabin is all one big family, and you broke that family, you broke everyone's hearts, you broke Annabeth's heart, you were her friend and you betrayed her."

Luke was furious, "the Gods ignore us, they leave their children unclaimed for years, they don't really care until we become useful, they could have saved my friends, but they didn't, they ignored them and let them be Ladon's chew toy."

"That would set a precedent, they would have to intervene in all quests, prevent all deaths, it is as the Fates weave, we must fly on our own wings, or what's the point of us being special if we can do anything stupid and survive? Either we must be careful or we act as a reminder about the dangers overconfidence. You are just bitter over the deaths of your friends, everyday people who believe in their God or Gods watch their loved ones die, but they don't curse a higher power, they thank that power for the time they had with their loved ones, and they know that like their loved ones, they will embrace death as it comes."

"Leave," Luke said, he sounded close to tears, "now," the covered shape glowed, and I woke up.


	16. Chapter 16

It was almost midday when I woke up, Janet was sitting at the foot of my bed, she looked over at me and smiled, she was framed by the sunlight streaming through the window opposite my bed, it made her hair shine like spun gold, she was beautiful.

"Good morning sleepyhead, yes it is still morning, just," I sat up.

"Good morning," I said smiling at my best friend, "I had another dream."

"Is it the Thanatos one, where he saved Ginny? Because he spoke to me as well last night," I nodded at her. "Well, up you get, get dressed, we missed breakfast, but we can catch lunch," I got, and groaned as my legs suddenly ached, I suppose I did do a lot of walking, and running yesterday, I grabbed my clothes, and a towel, and went to the bathroom to shower.

Twenty minutes later, and still aching, Janet and I were walking down the main stair, Janet did not seem worse for wear, she was walking along a spring in her step chatting cheerfully, greeting everyone she knew as we passed. When we reached the Great Hall we sat next to Ron, who looked like he got no sleep, he was in autopilot, so naturally was stuffing his face.

"Good afternoon Ron," Janet said sitting next to him, I sat opposite.

"How can you be so happy all the time?" Ron asked grumpily between mouthfuls of bread and ham.

"Well, it's lovely weather, we're alive, a certain monster isn't and your sister is no longer possessed by a sixty something year old psycho who particularly hates Harry."

"Do you always do that?" Ron asked gloomily.

"Do what?" Janet asked, she looked totally innocent.

"Look on the bright side of life, ignoring the bad, how do you do it? My sister is in the hospital, my best friend as well, and we're here eating bread and ham."

"Well, I'm eating smoked salmon and bread, it's very good, you should try some." Ron glared at Janet, who met his glare unblinking, then an impromptu staring contest broke out, Ron looked away first, "Ron you've got to always look on the bright side of life." She then started whistling a tune as she buttered some bread, I realised it was the Monty Python song about looking on the bright side of life, and almost choked on my salad as I laughed.

"So, what have I missed?" Harry asked as he walked over, he looked better than yesterday, "Ron, your sister is awake, you can visit her if you like," Ron bolted to his feet and ran from the room.

"Well, he seems happier, or you scared him off," Janet said smiling, "good to see you on your feet again."

"I'm just happy to be alive, by the way, we have to see Dumbledore, he stopped by and told me to bring you two to his office after lunch."

"Well, that's going to be interesting, I wonder what he's going to say," I said, Janet nodded in agreement.

"Madam Pomfrey's discharging everyone who was petrified just before lunch, by the way, the last one to get petrified, remember as we were leaving? That was Drake, a Hufflepuff in our year, he saw the monster through a glass he was drinking from." Janet looked confused, "do you know him?"

"Yeah, he's my half-brother, on my mother's side, but," Janet trailed off; she was lost, yet again.

* * *

After lunch, we walked to Dumbledore's office, where we met up with Ginny and Ron, Ginny looked healthier than Ron, she was full of colour and giddy with happiness at being free from Voldemort. "Chocolate frog," Harry said to the statues, which slid out the way, we went in together.

Dumbledore was at his desk studying the diary, McGonagall standing to his left, Fawkes was on his perch, he sung merrily when we entered, startling the hat awake, "ingenious, simply ingenious," Dumbledore muttered, he looked up at us as we approached him and smiled. "Of course, Tom Riddle was probably one of the most brilliant student Hogwarts has ever seen, I taught him myself fifty years ago. After he left, I would occasionally hear stories of his activities, dark rumours, but after a while, even the rumours stopped. When he finally resurfaced as Lord Voldemort, most people had completely forgotten the clever Head Boy he'd once been." He put the diary down with a sigh.

"I didn't know whose diary it was, sir, I swear. I found it inside my cauldron," she turned to us, "the day we were all in Diagon Alley," she then turned back to Dumbledore, "but I understand if, given all the trouble I've caused, if you," she was cut off by Dumbledore raising a finger for silence.

"Wiser wizards than you have been hoodwinked by Lord Voldemort, Miss Weasley, no, I think you've endured enough, just enjoy yourself at the celebration tonight," Ginny brightened up and smiled at the old man, "I believe your parents have arrived, Minerva if you will."

"Certainly Albus," McGonagall said leading Ginny from the room.

Mrs Weasley's voice echoed up from below, "a diary that writes back to you! Honestly Ginny! What were you thinking? Haven't I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain!" I had to wonder how many times that came up in casual conversation amongst wizards.

Dumbledore regarded us grimly, "You four realize, of course, that in the last few days, you have broken perhaps a dozen school rules? Including kidnapping and assaulting a member of staff."

"Yes sir," we said in unison.

"You understand that there is enough evidence to expel each and every one of you several times over."

"Yes sir."

"Therefore, it seems only fitting in my job as headmaster," he signed five pieces of paper, and smiled "that the four of you receive Special Awards for Services to the School. And, let me see, yes, I think one hundred points apiece, which, I believe, should be more than enough to secure Gryffindor the House Cup."

"Now, Mr. Weasley, if you would, have an owl deliver these release papers to Azkaban," he handed a piece of paper to Ron, "we need our gamekeeper back," Ron quickly left the room.

"First, Harry and Alice, I want to thank you, you must have shown real loyalty down in the Chamber, nothing but that could have called Fawkes to you. Secondly, I sense you're troubled by something Harry. Am I right?"

"It's just, you see, sir, I couldn't help noticing certain things. Certain similarities, between Tom Riddle and me," Harry sounded mournful and sad.

"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry, because Lord Voldemort can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar," Dumbledore said grimly.

"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry sounded disgusted at the thought of that maniac in his head.

"Like with diary," I said.

"Exactly like the diary," Dumbledore said, 'how like the Diary?' I thought, 'is Harry a Horcrux as well? Probably not.'

"So the sorting hat was right, I should be in Slytherin."

"I never said should," the hat shouted.

"It's true, Harry. You do possess many of the qualities Voldemort himself prizes. Resourcefulness, determination, a certain disregard for the rules. Yet the Sorting Hat placed you in Gryffindor."

"Only because I asked him to," Harry said sadly.

"Exactly," Dumbledore exclaimed, "which makes you very different from Voldemort, it's not our abilities that show what we truly are, Harry. It's our choices," smiled at Harry, "if you want proof that you belong in Gryffindor, Harry, I suggest you look more closely at this," he lifted the sword Harry used to kill the Basilisk, Janet took a sharp breath.

"Is that what I think it is?" She asked excitedly.

"Godric Gryffindor," Harry read.

"It is, the legendary sword of Gryffindor, the finest sword the Goblins ever made," Janet shouted in excitement.

"Only a true Gryffindor could have pulled that out of the hat," Dumbledore said smiling; the beauty of the moment was ruined by sudden Malfoy, no not that one, Malfoy senior.


	17. Chapter 17

Lucius Malfoy was once again in all black; he was carrying his cane and dragging along a house elf, "Dobby! This is your Master? The family you serve is the Malfoys?" Harry exclaimed, but somehow Lucius didn't hear him.

"Out of the way Potter," Lucius said sneering and pushing Harry out the way, "so, you have returned," he said rudely to Dumbledore.

"Yes, when the governors heard that Arthur Weasley's daughter had been taken into the Chamber, they saw fit to summon me back," Dumbledore said smiling wryly at the scowling wizard, "curiously, several of them seemed under the impression that you would curse their families if they didn't agree to suspend me in the first place, Lucius." Lucius froze like a rabbit in the headlights before visibly relaxing.

"From the beginning, my only concern has been the welfare of this school and its students," his response sounded stiff and rehearsed, he didn't really care, he just hated Dumbledore, "I assume the culprit has been identified," he sounded slightly nervous, he was hiding something.

"Oh yes, it was Voldemort," Lucius stiffened, not in the same way that Ron did every time the name was mentioned, but more like he was restraining himself, "only this time, he chose to act through someone else, by means of this," Dumbledore pushed the diary to the front of the desk. Dobby coughed, Lucius didn't notice, too caught up in his glaring, I looked at the elf, who nodded at the diary, and then at Lucius, then it struck me, Lucius gave Ginny the diary during the argument in the bookshop. "Fortunately, our young Mr. Potter discovered it. One only hopes that no more of Lord Voldemort's old school things find their way into innocent hands the consequences for the one responsible could be severe," his voice was chilling, he was implying quite a lot to Lucius, Dumbledore had also guessed that Lucius did it, but couldn't accuse him outright.

"Come Dobby, we're leaving," Lucius said icily whilst glaring at Dumbledore, he stormed out the room, Dobby scampered to the door, when he reached it Lucius kicked him through, Dobby's painful squeak could be heard from the other side.

"Sir, I wonder if I could have that?" Harry asked pointing at the diary, Dumbledore looked up and nodded, Harry ran out the room, I looked at Janet who shrugged and walked after him, I followed.

We caught up to Harry two corridors over; he was chasing Lucius of all people, "Mr Malfoy! I have something of yours," Lucius turned to have the diary thrust into his hand; he looked at it in amazement before glaring at Harry.

"Mine? I don't know what you're talking about," he said still a bit shocked, he was a really dreadful liar.

"I think you do, sir, I think you slipped it into Ginny Weasley's cauldron that day in Diagon Alley," Harry said narrowing his eyes.

Lucius leaned in and did the one thing that proved his guilt, he said rather louder than intended, "prove it," before handing the diary to Dobby, and by hand, I mean he shoved it in Dobby's face. He then turned away, Dobby looked back at us sadly, still clutching the diary in his hands, Harry then mouthed the words: 'Open it.' Dobby looks down curiously and opened the diary to reveal a sock, Dobby gasped in surprise and then smiled broadly; totally confused I turned to the others, who were smiling. Realising Dobby was not following him Lucius shouted, "Dobby come, Dobby."

"Master has given Dobby a sock," Dobby said smiling in amazement, like someone who's greatest dream just came true, "Master has presented Dobby with clothes, Dobby is free!" He cheered smiling broader still; man wizarding customs are weird.

"What!" Lucius shouted wheeling round, "no I didn't," he stopped when he saw Dobby staring at the sock, he then glared at Harry, "You've lost me my servant!" He shouted charging at Harry, cane raised, Janet and Dobby both stepped in the way.

"You shall not harm Harry Potter!" Dobby said, they both clicked their fingers and Lucius was thrown back down the corridor, he landed in a crumpled heap, where he stayed for a moment before groaning, and standing, he wiped blood from a cut on his head.

"Mark my words, Harry Potter. You'll meet the same sticky end as your parents one of these days, they were meddlesome fools too," 'well, he just marked himself as a Death Eater,' Lucius, realising he couldn't beat the four of us, whirled and stormed off.

Dobby smiled and jumped for joy, "Harry Potter freed Dobby! How can Dobby ever repay him?"

"Just promise me something," Harry said smiling at the happy elf, I felt myself smiling as well, Dobby's smiled was infectious.

"Anything, sir."

"Never try to save my life again," Dobby chuckled and apparated away, somehow, he was still inside the wards after all, magic is weird.

* * *

At the feast later, everyone was festive, except for some of the Slytherin table, who seemed subdued and disappointed. We were about to sit when Hermione came rushing and hugged Harry, "you solved it, you solved it!"

"Janet solved it, I was just there," Harry muttered blushing, Hermione then hugged me and Janet, before turning to Ron, where after several awkward moments of hesitation they settled on a handshake, we took our seats as McGonagall tapped a spoon on her goblet.

Dumbledore took to the podium and started to speak, "before we begin our feast, let's give a round of applause to Professor Sprout and Madame Pomfrey, whose Mandrake Juice has been successfully administered to all those who had been petrified." There was the loudest round of applause that I ever heard in that hall, the two staff members were blushing furiously in their seats. "Also, in the wake of recent events, as a school treat, all exams have been cancelled," cue the second loudest round of applause I ever heard in that hall, everyone was clapping, except Hermione, who looked sad and Janet, who was looking rather indifferent.

The doors open suddenly with a bang, silencing everyone, in the doorway stood a rather embarrassed, but very happy Hagrid, "sorry I'm late, the owl deliverin' my release papers got all lost 'n confused, some ruddy bird named Errol," Ron looked mortified by this, I took the only appropriate course of action for a friend to take in this situation. I facepalmed.

Hagrid walked up the centre of the room, heading for the staff table, he stopped next to us, "I jus' want to say, that if it wasn't fer' you, Harry, you an' Ron, an' Hermione, an' Janet, an' Alice. Well, I jus' want to say, thanks."

"There's no Hogwarts without you Hagrid," Harry said smiling at the half-giant, at the staff table Dumbledore stood and start applauding, slowly most of the rest of the hall followed suit, including Snape and some Slytherin. Hagrid looked around in wonderment, before wiping away a tear and continuing on to his seat.

* * *

Six weeks later we found ourselves on the train home, the period usually reserved for exams had been different, they had been taster of the course for the next year to help us choose, of course OWL and NEWT exams still happened, but the ministry was more lenient, considering the circumstances.

Janet and I talked the whole train journey back, then on the platform we weren't met by Chiron and Mr Harker. It was Mr Harker and a very thin man, who looked dreadfully hungry, he was tall with balding greyish brown hair and a long beard, and hungry blue eyes he was wearing an orange boiler suit with a small number on a white tag, I couldn't read it, he was too far away. Mr Harker was glaring at the man and was trying to pretend he didn't exist

"Come children," he said, his voice barely a hiss, as if he was thirsty and hadn't drunk in a really long time, "we must get back to camp."

"Where's Chiron?" Janet asked, "and who are you?"

"Chiron has been dismissed, I am Tantalus, your new activities director," I recognised his name, he was one of the three most famous souls in the field of punishment from Ancient Greece, I couldn't remember why he was there, nor what his punishment was, I think it involved food. If it hadn't been for the fact Mr Harker was there I wouldn't have believed him, I mean Chiron had trained heroes for millennia, and suddenly he was fired, something serious must have happened. We reluctantly followed the old man to the floo network hub where, Tantalus must have been a wizard or a demigod when he was alive, because we then took the floo tube to America. Long distance flooing is weird, it has the usual feeling of being stretched out, but for a much longer time, it's not pleasant, but it's more accurate than portkeys.


	18. Chapter 18

We reassembled, quite literally, in the American floo network's main international hub, which was disguised as a shed outside JFK international airport. So as not to draw attention with a bunch of children lugging massive old fashioned trunks out a cupboard, Janet, Drake and Mr Harker sent the bags ahead, and we hurriedly left the airport to the buses where Argus was waiting with the bags, he eyed Tantalus cautiously as he approached.

Janet left with her Dad as they had last year, to do something, she was going off on her own adventure and one or two others went off with their families. So we ended up with Tantalus driving one of the minibuses on the way back, which was terrifying, he was an awful driver, we came very close to dying on at least a dozen occasions, after a time that seemed like an eternity with Tantalus driving, we arrived at Camp. I'm surprised we weren't pulled over, it must have been the mist covering Tantalus up, or the cops were too busy to do anything about him.

* * *

When we arrived I saw something that made me want to cry, Thalia's tree was dying, and without it the magical boundaries would surely fail. The once magnificent pine tree had lost most of its leaves, and those that remained were an unhealthy brown, we all ran over to the tree, there was a gash in the tree that was oozing a foul smelling sap, Lou Ellen was sitting at the base of the tree with a half-dozen of Demeter's children.

"We're helping the tree as much as we can, but it's no good, the poison is too much for our combined abilities," Lou said sadly, "it would take a dozen children of Hecate to get the poison out the tree. But we don't have a dozen, we have three when Janet gets here, and that's not enough, we'll be able to maintain the tree for a couple of weeks, but Thalia is going to die." I was scared, without the tree anyone, mortal or monster can get into the camp, we wouldn't be safe.

"As it is the wards are weak enough that powerful monsters can get in," one of the children of Demeter said, "and they occasionally do," she sounded scared, very scared. I felt useless, I didn't know any magic to help the tree, I couldn't do anything except fight when the wards failed.

I couldn't say anything, so I nodded sadly and trudged down to camp, I had to find Annabeth, she would have a plan, Athena always has a plan, I found her in the dining area, as usual talking to Percy.

"Hi Annabeth, hi Percy" I said, I could only hope she had a plan.

"Hi Alice," Percy said, Annabeth echoed him.

"Annabeth do you have any idea about what to do about Thalia's tree? Because it really scares me, if the monsters find out, we could be in a lot of trouble."

"Well, we have a plan, well, more of an idea, you see, Percy currently has a link to Grover, who has been captured by a Cyclops, Polyphemus."

"The blind Cyclops," I muttered, I then remembered what Thanatos had said to me after the death of the Basilisk, "the golden treasure, that will heal her wounds, is in the land where nobody fooled the blinded monster, in the sea of mysteries that even muggles and mortals notice," I hadn't realised I'd spoken until Annabeth suddenly turned to me.

"What was that?" She asked in surprise.

"Well, at school I did something for Thanatos, his reward was that he saved one of my friends' lives and gave me a cryptic piece of advice, the golden treasure, that will heal her wounds, is in the land where nobody fooled the blinded monster, in the sea of mysteries that even muggles and mortals notice. I think whatever the golden treasure is, it must have powerful magic that will heal Thalia's tree, and it must be wherever Polyphemus is, because he is the blinded monster fooled by Odysseus, who called himself nobody, but the sea of mystery, that must be the Sea of Monsters, which is currently the Bermuda triangle. I think we need a quest."

Annabeth nodded sadly, "we already tried, Tantalus won't hear it, he's too busy trying to break his punishment, he sent Clarisse instead."

"He sent a daughter of Ares to the Sea of Monsters; does she even know where it is?" I couldn't believe Tantalus, true he seemed like an arse, but he was trying to get us killed.

"Thirty degrees thirty seven minutes north, seventy five degrees twelve minutes west, the grey sisters told us," that wasn't strange in the slightest, they took the chariot of damnation and got given sailing coordinates, exactly where they'd later have to go, what luck.

"So, basically, we have to leave at some point, Clarisse is inevitably going to screw up, the only question is, do we wait for Janet to get back?" I asked, they looked at me in surprise; it seemed the thought had also been in their heads.

"Well, it would be good to have Janet with us, she is very powerful, but do we have time?" Annabeth said, she was worried, "considering the fact that those Stymphalian birds got into the camp, I'd say we don't."

"So, what's the plan?" I asked Annabeth, she sat there and thought for a while.

"We meet at the beach after curfew, we then leave the camp and arrange transport to Florida, if necessary we can call the Chariot of Damnation, or take pegasi."

"I could ask Lou Ellen or Drake to make a portkey," I suggested, "and demigods are allowed to use the floo network if they have a witch or wizard with them, well, I'm a witch, so, we could take a floo."

"Floo?" Percy asked.

"It's a magical network that connects every chimney in the magical world, including some which are public use, they tend to be in shops no-one visits, like VHS repair shops, phone booths, or pieces of public art, they sometimes have hidden doorways in them or magic shops."

"Oh, ok, isn't that a weird way to get around?"

"Well, portkeys and apparating are more common, but you can't apparate inside the Sea of Monsters and I'm too young to apparate anyway, and if you have non-magician demigods with you it's easier to floo. Anyway, see you later; I've got unpacking and repacking to do."

* * *

I walked back to the Hermes cabin and checked inside, Drake was there, he was putting away his Hogwarts things; he bolted upright when he heard me enter, but relaxed when he saw it was me.

"Hi Alice," he said smiling at me, "it's good to be back, I may love Hogwarts, but America will always be my home, especially here and with Dad in Vegas." I'd forgotten his dad was a stage magician in Vegas, then again I didn't really see him much, or talk to him, he seemed to avoid us at Hogwarts, he was always off with his friends from Hufflepuff.

"Yeah," I said smiling as I looked around the cabin, taking in the sights of the messy bunks, the sleeping bags, the overflowing cupboards, that weird brown patch that appeared on the wall one night and no-one knew what it was. The patch was part of the family, it scared everyone when it first appeared, but Janet and Drake determined it to be not dangerous, and not magical, the Stoll brothers determined that it tasted disgusting during a game of truth or dare, so it was left to its patchy needs. "No place like home," my fear and nervousness over Thalia's tree must have leaked into my voice because Drake smiled at me and said.

"It's going to be fine, something will save us, Clarisse will get the fleece, we just have to hold out, now the magicians are all here camp can hold out longer," I smiled nervously at his optimism.

"Yeah, but it's still an unknown, and I hate unknowns," I walked over to where my suitcase was by my bunk, I reached under the bunk and pulled out a backpack, I had prepared the backpack in case I ever went on a quest, it was blind optimism at the time. I heard Drake leave, and checked my backpack; I had two changes of clothes, some drachmas, both muggle, and magical money, some long-life food, a dagger and a flask of water. I had everything, except a sword, my sword was still in the weapons shed, then I remembered, I still had Janet's bracelet, it was supposed to return to her, but because I was wearing it, the bracelet was still here. I was going to leave when I remembered something, the mood ring Janet gave me, I dug through my bag and found it. I tried it on, it grew to fit my hand and instantly started glowing a faint red, which meant monsters were near, probably something in the woods, I didn't wear it to Hogwarts because it would have reacted to the Thestrals, Fluffy, the unicorns, Hagrid, Flitwick, the ghosts, even some of the portraits.

I didn't get anything else done, I was restless and excited at the prospect of my first quest, even under these circumstances, so I did the only thing I could thing I could think to do, I went to the stables. On the way there, I bumped into a Cyclops. He had medium length brown hair and one brown eye, he was not very tall for a Cyclops, so I assumed he was still young, he was wearing a flannel shirt and jeans, the only thought that came to my head was 'where does he buy those from?' Despite being a young Cyclops, he was still over six feet tall. He certainly explained why my ring was glowing.

"Hello," he said, I blinked in surprise, Cyclops usually just try to eat me.

"Hello," I said hesitantly, he was staring at me, which was kind of unnerving, he seemed to be staring right into my eyes.

"Pretty eyes," he muttered to himself, I was confused, and then remembered that my eyes look like a kaleidoscope, thanks to Mum.

"Thank you," I said, 'why is a Cyclops in camp, and why are people not freaking out?'

"I'm Tyson," the Cyclops said smiling a broad toothy grin.

"Nice to meet you Tyson, I'm Alice," I stopped myself from reaching out a hand for him to shake, even if he was friendly, which he seemed to be, he might accidentally break my wrist.

"Tyson?" A voice called, the voice was Percy, I turned to see him walking over.

"Hi brother," Tyson said happily, that explained why there was a Cyclops in camp, and opened up a dozen more questions.

"There you are, Beckendorf was looking for you," Percy said smiling at the Cyclops.

"Ok Percy, I'll go see Beckendorf," Tyson said walking off in the direction of the forge.

"Are you sure you want to come with us? We could all get kicked out camp for this," Percy said.

"Percy, don't try to talk me out of coming, if we succeed, we are heroes and get a slap on the wrist, if we fail there is no camp to get kicked out of, and I am not content to sit on the side-lines, besides, don't you think it'd be a good idea to have a witch along?"

"I do, don't get me wrong, it's just, I was planning to take Tyson, and there's a reason why it's only three to a quest," Percy said.

"Percy the reason for three to a quest is to minimise the demigod scent for monsters, well, to be blunt, Tyson is technically a monster, no matter how nice he is, I'm not saying he's a bad guy, just that to other monsters he probably smells like one of them," I said satisfied with my explanation.

"If you change your mind I won't hold it against you," Percy said turning and heading towards the arena.


	19. Chapter 19

The rest of the day went by so slowly, the campfire in particular went on for an eternity, especially seeing as everyone wanted encores to a half dozen songs, but eventually we got to bed. When I was sure everyone was asleep I grabbed my backpack from under the bed, quickly got dressed as quietly as possible (into subdued clothing, as much as it pained me to not dress brightly) and snuck out the cabin. When I reached the beach, Percy was already there, he was talking to a man dressed as a jogger, who vanished suddenly when I got near.

Percy was holding a yellow duffel bag and there were two more on the sand, Percy was looking out to sea, I followed his gaze and saw a white speck on the horizon, which I realised, was a cruise ship. "If you're thinking of boarding that cruise ship, I think that might actually work," I said trying to break into Percy's train of thought, I heard footsteps behind us and turned to see Annabeth and Tyson walking down the beach. "So do we have an actual plan or are we just winging it?" I asked.

"Why's Tyson here?" Annabeth asked, 'yay, just what we needed, conflict before the quest started.'

"Because Annabeth," I said trying to shut her up before she did something stupid, I could hear the harpies, they were getting close, "if we leave him then Tantalus will punish him out of spite."

"But he's a C-I-K, K-Y-K," Annabeth stamped her foot in anger over not being able to spell, yay for dyslexia.

"How do we get to the ship?" I asked, 'those harpies are getting close,' I thought getting ready to fight.

"Hi Dad, um," Percy said, "um, Dad we need your help to get to that ship, please help," he shouted. At first there was nothing, then four white lines appeared in the surf, and sea horses rose from the surf and crawled onto the beach, literal sea horses, they had the front halves of white stallions and the back half of glistening fish.

"Fish ponies!" Tyson shouted, clapping his hands happily.

"Hippocampi," Annabeth breathed, "they're beautiful," they did look lovely with their rainbow of fish scales and the white fur of the horse half.

"Admire later," I said, "the harpies are getting near. Tyson," I shouted, he turned and looked around as if broken from a trance, "grab a duffel bag," Tyson grabbed a duffel bag and climbed on the hippocampus that was larger than the other three, Annabeth mounted one, Percy another and me the fourth one.

"There they are, naughty children out of bed," the harpies shouted as the climbed over the sand bank, they were short, plump hags with pinched face, talons and crow wings that looked far too small to keep them flying.

"Giddy-up," Percy shouted, his hippocampus galloped out into the sea and swam off, the rest of us followed suit, leaving the harpies calling for snacks. The hippocampi sped off at impossible speeds, leaving Camp a dark mark on the horizon behind us.

* * *

As we got closer I realised how huge the cruise ship was, it was easily the size of Gryffindor Tower, after a couple of attempts I read the name to be the Princess Andromeda, the ship had a figurehead, which was weird, most cruise ships don't have a figurehead, what was even weirder was the subject of the figurehead. She was a beautiful young woman in a full chiton, with long flowing black hair and an expression of absolute terror, she was probably based off the original Andromeda, who had been chained to a rock to save a town, the original Perseus had saved her.

We circled around the ship until we reached a service ladder, "you first," Percy said to Annabeth, she grabbed her duffel bag and started climbing.

"Really gentlemanly of you," I said to Percy as I followed Annabeth, not waiting for a response.

I heard hysterical laughter from down below to see Tyson and his hippocampus doing tricks, a whispered argument broke out between Percy and Tyson before they also started climbing.

* * *

When we reached the top, we found ourselves on a maintenance deck stacked with lifeboats, with pipes head every which way. Annabeth was crouched in front of some double doors trying to prise open with her knife, whilst cursing liberally in Greek.

"Annabeth, let me," I said, she nodded and stepped out the way, I pointed my wand at the lock, " **alohomora** , and there you go," I pushed the door open, the next corridor was empty, as was the next, we ended up walking half the ship, "it's like a ghost ship," I said as we reached the main promenade, "it's empty."

"No, smell something," Tyson said, I sniffed, nothing.

" **Revelio monstrum** ," I cast, the ship lit up like Christmas tree, every third cabin had a monster in it.

"I'm sparkly," Tyson said happily, before sighing sadly when the light faded.

"What were those lights?" Percy asked.

"Monsters, every single one of them, probably more in the hull, if we find a hidden corner I can set up wards, they seem to be asleep right now."

"So, we're on a ship full of monsters?" Percy asked sceptically.

"Yes, the spell is never wrong, now come on," I said as we walked off quickly, we found an empty two bedroom suite, I quickly set up shields and warding charms on the door, hopefully no-one would see us. The suite looked really nice, the rooms each had two massive comfy beds, and there was the world's most suspicious chocolate basket and a chilled bottle of some drink.

"We'll be next door," Annabeth said looking the front door, "don't eat or drink anything from the ship."

Percy stopped himself from eating some chocolate, "why? Is it enchanted?"

I walked over to the basket, " **revelio incantatem** ," I waved my wand over the chocolates, they glowed a purplish light, "yep, they're enchanted." I then walked off to the room Annabeth and I had commandeered, and went to sleep.

* * *

"Good morning passengers," came the overly happy Australian voice over the intercom, "we will be at sea all day today. Excellent weather for the poolside mambo party. Don't forget million-dollar bingo in the Kraken Lounge at one o'clock; and for our special guests, disembowelling practice on the Promenade," I was now very much awake, what a weird thing to announce over the intercom.

"Disembowelling practice?" Annabeth asked sleepily, her hair was a mess, mine probably was as well, I sat down at the vanity and looked in the mirror, yep, it was a mess.

" **Pectine capillos** ," an invisible comb started sorting out my hair, " **finite incantatem** ," I cast before the comb did something stupid. "Do you want some help?" I asked Annabeth who was trying to comb her hair out with her fingers.

"Yes please," I repeated the spells with her until her hair was combed out.

"So, do you want to explore the ship, or should we bail? We know this is a ship full of monsters, do we want to risk it?" I asked when we had all assembled in the main room of the suite. We were eating some of the food from the yellow duffel bags the magic jogger gave Percy.

"I want to find out who was taking a literal boatload of monsters so near camp," Annabeth said.

"I think its Luke," I said remembering my dream after the defeat of the basilisk.

"What?" Annabeth asked, I then told them about the dream, Annabeth sat there looking thoughtful, like Janet does when she's presented with a new riddle. "That does make sense, the spike he talked about must be the one that poisoned the tree, it's still hard to believe he'd do this, he's basically murdering his friend," she sounded angry and resigned to the knowledge the Luke she knew was gone.

"So, I we know who it is, let's go, take a lifeboat back to the mainland and floo to Bermuda or Florida or anywhere but here," I said.

"Yeah," Hermione said sipping on a bottle of water, "I don't want to be here when the monsters find out we were here."

After a breakfast of food we brought with us, we tried to sneak down to the lower decks, which is difficult when you are on the seventh floor above the promenade, the boat was even creepier during the day. There were Cyclops, hellhounds, cannibals (of the Canadian variety), a veela and several wild dwarves in full armour, the monster were surrounded by mortals, hundreds of them, all smiling like simpletons, all with glazed over eyes.

"We are going to the pool and we will have fun, won't we children?" One middle-aged man said in a wooden emotionless voice as he walked towards the pool, followed by three glassy eyed children.

"Yes father," they all replied in chorus with the same wooden emotionless voice.

"Are we sure this isn't the lotus casino's cruise business?" I asked sarcastically, Annabeth shot me a look, you don't want to receive one of Annabeth's looks, they're scary.

We were halfway down the boat, so close to the maintenance deck we entered on when we were stopped by the two massive bodyguards I saw in my dream; we turned to go back up, when we were stopped by three armoured dwarves and a demigod we recognised, "et tu Chris?" I asked the familiar face of Chris Rodriguez, an unclaimed demigod, the same age as Percy, who ran away from cabin eleven last winter, behind him a hooded figure could be seen, probably a witch of some kind.

He grinned at me from under his helmet, he was in full armour, "if the gods don't care about us, then I may as well join the other side." It was a dreadful argument, but we couldn't argue back, he might kill us out of spite, he grabbed Annabeth and twisted her right arm up behind her back so she couldn't draw her dagger, he held sword to her throat, "now, come quietly, or there will only be three of you."


	20. Chapter 20

We followed behind Chris as he took us up the ship to the Admiralty suite, it was not the suite from my dream, it was an even larger room, one wall was a massive window, and the others were plain white. The room was very well decorated with a Persian rug, two plush sofas, a dining set, a canopied bed and the creepiest shrine ever, it was ten feet long, and velvet covered, with a golden casket laid on top. Luke leaned back on his table, "well, well, well, if it isn't my old friends Annabeth, and Percy, I'm so glad you're alright, Alice, you've grown," he sounded like a creepy uncle now, which is never good, "and," he looked down his nose at Tyson, "you got a pet," Percy and Tyson growled. "It's a bit nicer then cabin eleven isn't it Percy?" He was dressed in a buttoned shirt, khaki shorts and sandals, he'd had a haircut, it was now short then I'd ever seen it before. "Sit," he waved a hand and three chairs moved over and placed themselves behind us, Tyson didn't get one, none of us sat, we would not give him the advantage. Luke hit the heel of his hand to his forehead as if he'd forgotten something, "where are my manners? I should introduce my assistants; the twins are Agrius and Oreius." Now I saw them closer I realised they weren't hairy men, they were monsters, they were walking shag carpets, two and a half metres tall, with claws, snouts, all their teeth were sharp canines and their feet were paws, they only wore jeans and carried massive javelins. "You probably know their story," when no-one replied he sighed, "you see, you're gone for a couple of centuries and they forget about you."

"Their mother was a huntress of Artemis who was made to fall in love with a bear by Aphrodite, Artemis was horrified and was forced to abandon her, as per her own rules, as only maidens can be in the hunt." I said cutting him off, "Dad taught me the story when he was painting a piece for an exhibition about Greece, he said that the three of them," I turned to the two assistants, "you two and your mother, got a bad lot in life." I swear, the bearmen smiled slightly.

"Rather typical for Olympians wouldn't you say? They fight one another and poor humans get caught in the crossfire, the experience has left Oreius and Agrius with no love for Olympus, but they like demigods enough," the two bearmen laughed harshly.

"For lunch," one of them said licking his lips, they both started laughing again.

"Shut up you idiots, you will be punished later, my other companions, are the dwarves of the blue wolf clan, Ori," he pointed at one of the stalwart dwarves in full armour, "Pora," he pointed at another dwarf, "and Keith," he pointed at a third dwarf. "And finally there is the lovely Tala," he pointed at the hooded figure, who drew back her hood to reveal a long face with purple hair and eyes that were pure white, which might mean she was blind, but the odds were she could see us. "Well Percy we let you survive another year, I hope you appreciate it, how's school? How's your mother?" Luke said walking over to stand in front of Percy.

"You poisoned Thalia's tree," was Percy's response as he tried to hide how scared he was whilst glaring holes into Luke, unfortunately he couldn't do either.

"Straight to the point, eh? So what? I ordered the tree poisoned, of course I couldn't do it myself, not with both the Gods and the Aurors looking for me."

"How could you?" Annabeth shouted, she was so angry I was worried she'd have an aneurysm, "Thalia saved your life! Our lives! How could you dishonour her -" Annabeth was cut off by Luke.

"I didn't dishonour her!" He shouted, "the Gods dishonoured her, Annabeth! If Thalia was alive, she'd be on my side."

"Liar!"

"If you knew what was coming you'd understand," Luke said knowingly, 'I wish Janet was here she could tell us what Luke was thinking.'

"I understand you want to destroy camp," Annabeth shouted, "you're a monster."

Luke shook his head fondly, "the Gods have blinded you Annabeth. Can't you imagine a world without them? What good is that Ancient history you study? Three thousand years of baggage! The West is rotten to the core. It has to be destroyed. Join me, together we could remake the world anew," I almost expected dramatic lightening and organ chords to play.

"You sound so much like a North Korean dictator," I muttered, "or maybe Putin."

"How dare you compare me to some petty third world dictator?"

"Actually North Korea is second world, and Russia is first world," Luke flushed red in anger.

"I have so missed your weird sense of humour Alice," Luke said, the suave attempt to recruit me doesn't work so well through gritted teeth. "I know you Annabeth," he said turning back to Annabeth, "you deserve better than tagging along on some hopeless quest to save camp. Half-blood hill will be overrun with monsters within the month. The heroes who survive will have no choice but to join us, or be hunted to extinction. "

"Or join the magical community," I said, I think Luke heard me, but didn't acknowledge me.

"You really are on the losing team... with company like that," he pointed at Tyson.

"Hey," Tyson said narrowing his eye.

"Traveling with a Cyclops," Luke tsked condescendingly, "talk about dishonouring Thalia's memory! I'm surprised at you Annabeth, you of all people-"

"Stop it!" She shouted before collapsing crying.

"Leave her alone, and leave Tyson out of this," Percy shouted.

"Oh yeah," Luke chuckled, "I heard, your father claimed him," Percy look surprised, for some reason, we already knew he had an agent in the camp, "yes Percy, I know all about that, and about your plan to find the Fleece. What were those coordinates again? Thirty, thirty-one, seventy-five, twelve? You see, I still have friends at camp who keep me posted."

"Spies, you mean."

Luke shrugged, "how many insult from your father can you take Percy? You think he's grateful to you? You think-"

"Oh shut up Luke," I shouted, I was bored of his voice, "your crazy plan won't work, you've been hearing voices so long they've driven you insane, just give up Luke."

"Give up? You are the ones who are insane, one too many blows to the head during practice I think. You're stupid, especially you Percy, you fight for the Gods, but they won't even tell you the prophecy of what happens on your sixteenth birthday, you put your trust in them, you idiot." Tyson smashed a dining chair.

"Percy is not stupid, Percy is not an idiot," before anyone could stop him, he charged Luke with both hands raised, he brought them down with enough force to punch through the hull of this ship. But the bear twins intercepted, they caught his arms and stopped them dead, then they pushed him back, he stumbled and fell to the carpet.

"Too bad little Cyclops, it looks like my grizzly friends are more than a match for your strength," Luke taunted Tyson who just sat there.

"Luke," Percy started, I had a feeling this would go badly, "listen your father sent us," Luke turned red, Percy was going to continue until I stopped him.

" **Silencio** ," I cast, Percy continued talking but no sound came out, he turned and glared at me.

"My father sent you to fetch me home? So what, he can tell me I'm a very naughty boy and send me to bed without supper. Well forget it, every half-blood who joins us Olympus gets a little bit weaker and he," Luke pointed at the casket, "he gets a little bit stronger," upon being noticed the temperature in the room dropped ten degrees and magic went haywire, my spell broke and I almost collapsed, Tala did the same.

"Drop the pronoun game Luke, that casket is Kronos, isn't it?" I said trying to sound too strong despite being close to fainting.

Luke smiled, "yes, reforming piece by piece, every time a demigod joins us another piece appears."

"Ew, gross," I said, it was what we were all thinking.

"Join us Annabeth, and you'll be rewarded, you can be the architect you always wanted to be, you can build monuments to a new era you can-"

"Go to Tarturus, " Annabeth said spitting in Luke's general direction.

"A shame," Luke pulled a remote out his pocket and pressed a button, two glassy eyed security guards walked into the room with batons, "security, we appear to have some stowaways," he turned to one of the bear twins, "take them below and feed them to the drakon, you three," he pointed at the dwarves, "you go with them."

"Let me go," the other bear twin said, "my brother is useless, and the Cyclops is-"

"Of no consequence," Luke cut him off, "Agrius, stay, we have matters to discuss, Oreius, don't fail me, stay in the hold to make sure the drakon is properly fed."

* * *

We were lead out the suite, three dwarves in front, surrounding Annabeth and Percy, two security guards flanking me, and Oreius guarding Tyson. We were walking along an open deck lined with lifeboats, together the twins were a match for Tyson, but individually, I could take the guards, the dwarves may cause a problem, there was no-one else about.

"Now," I shouted, hoping the other understood, " **petrificus totalus** ," I cast, one guard down, behind me Tyson had punched Oreius, he landed in the swimming pool, " **petrificus totalus** ," the other guard was down. I heard a grunt and an unconscious dwarf landed at my feet, Percy and Annabeth had taken all three down. "Into the lifeboat," I said, sirens blared, we climbed into the lifeboat, Percy and Annabeth cut the ropes, and we fell. Before we went splat I had an idea, " **aresto momentum** ," we slowed and touched down, archers were lining the side of the ship, " **protego** ," I cast catching the first volley, Percy pulled a flask out his bag, "now's not the time for a drink Percy." I shouted as he undid the lid, a gust of wind whisked out the flask, rocketing our little boat forward, " **ventus** ," I cast adding my own wind to the stream. Soon the Princess Andromeda was just a toy boat on the horizon, a very angry toy boat, which was quietly shouting insults at us, and then it was gone.


	21. Chapter 21

The boat was creating a rainbow of sea spray, which gave me an idea, "mother, please show me Chiron the centaur," a window opened in the spray to show Chiron, he was in a darkened room, there was a lot of drunken shouting, which meant he was visiting relatives.

"Alice? Percy? Annabeth? Tyson? What are you doing," I filled him in on what was going on, "hmm, you have to watch out," the loud shouting got louder as the Macarena came on in the background, "curse my relatives, you shouldn't have left camp, any of you, but if you do get the fleece," he was cut off by his relatives shouting again. "Get it to Miami," I'll be watching, "he was cut off by the connection being severed by a bottle being thrown at it.

"Thanks Mum," I said to the now empty screen, the rainbow formed a slight smile before returning to usual.

An hour later, we saw land, just a smudge, on the horizon; "land ho," I shouted, the others looked at me weirdly. "Oh come on tell me you weren't thinking the same thing," Percy smiled, Annabeth rolled her eyes and Tyson looked confused. A coastguard cruiser passed us and then turned back for another look, we were after all a yellow lifeboat going very quickly with no obvious propulsion and manned by four kids. "Virginia beach," I read off the side with a great deal of difficulty.

"We've travelled like," Annabeth tried to calculate in her head.

"Do you want an abacus, or a slide rule?" I asked, Annabeth stuck her tongue out at me.

"Five hundred and thirty nautical miles," Percy said, "how do I?"

"Son of Poseidon thing," I offered, "what's our current coordinates?"

"Thirty six, forty four, seventy two, two."

"Ladies and gentlemen, Percy Jackson, the human GPS," I said, Tyson tapped on my shoulder.

"Other boat coming," we turned to see the coastguard boat heading towards us.

"Keep going into Chesapeake bay," Annabeth said, I couldn't use magic, magic wasn't protected by mist.

* * *

We zoomed into Chesapeake, Percy loosed the cap of the flask slightly more, we sped up, the bank narrowed, we were entering a river, Percy obviously noticed, he collapsed slightly like a Stoll brother coming down off a sugar high. "There past the next sandbank," Annabeth said, I was surprised she knew this area, we zoomed into a marshy, swampy area, with zine choked trees and hot, muggy air.

"Come on," Annabeth said grabbing her duffel bag.

"Where-" Percy started, but I threw his duffel at him and got out the boat, we walked up the bank, I thought quickly and put a notice-me-not charm and a muggle repulsing spell on the boat.

"Not a good place," Tyson said swatting at mosquitoes who were trying to eat him.

" **Repulso** ," I cast, the mosquitoes flew at Tyson, but were thrown off by a shield, I repeated the process with each of us, "it'll wear out in a couple of hours, but until them it will repel any small objects, rain droplets, insects, spiders."

"Thanks magic girl," Tyson said, trying to hug me, but I ducked out, I rather liked having my ribs intact.

"You're welcome, but Tyson, no hugs, sorry it's just you're rather large and I'm rather small, so it would end badly," Tyson cocked his head like a dog and then nodded in agreement.

"I won't hug," Tyson said, he sound sad, it made want to comfort him, but Annabeth stopped, we all looked at her expectantly.

"We're here," Annabeth said as she walked over to a thicket of brambles, she pushed a woven circle of brambles out the way to reveal a doorway.

We squeezed inside, the hideout, because that's what it was, was large enough for all four of us, even with Tyson, it was made of woven plants, and the floor was covered in stuff, backpacks, bottled water, long-life food, a kerosene lamp, musty sleeping bags, tools and both dirty and clean clothes. As well as demigod stuff, a quiver of arrows, bronze javelin tips, a sword, nectar and ambrosia packets. The place and a layer of dust, and the floor was starting to get over grown with saplings.

"A demigod hideout," Percy said he looked at Annabeth, "you made this place?"

"Me and Thalia," she said sadly before her face darkened, "and Luke."

That made sense, the three of them had travelled all over the country, of course, they'd have safe houses to hide if they needed to, they probably had dozens like this. But, knowing this it made me uncomfortable, one of the people who built this place was dead, and another was a traitor, leaving just Annabeth, I couldn't let my thoughts torture me, so I set about clearing the ground.

"You don't think Luke will look for us here?" Percy asked nervously.

Annabeth was quiet before shaking her head, "we made dozens of these safe houses like this, I doubt Luke even remembers where they are, or cares," she turned her back and walked into the corner.

"Um, Tyson?" Percy said, "would you mind scouting around outside? Like, look for a wilderness convenience store, or something."

"Convenience store?" Tyson asked scratching his head.

"Yeah, for snacks, powdered donuts, or something, just don't go too far," Percy explained awkwardly.

Tyson's face brightened up, "I will look for powdered donuts in the wilderness," Tyson left the safe house calling for powdered donuts, it was a dreadful ploy by Percy to get rid of Tyson so he could talk to Annabeth.

So Percy didn't have to think too hard I got up and walked out, "I'll set up some wards."

* * *

I spent the next twenty minutes setting up muggle warding wards, and half-finished monster wards, I couldn't finish them until Tyson got back, when he got back, he was carrying a couple of donut boxes, "where did you get that?" I asked finishing off an alarm ward.

"Monster donuts, just over the hill," Tyson said around mouthfuls of donuts, he pointed at a hill, I walked over, and crouched down next to a tree, sure enough, there was a store, sitting in the middle of the woods; its awning proclaimed in big black letters that the blue store was:

MONSTER DONUTS.

A cartoon ogre was biting the O in monster. It looked normal enough; I could see donuts on shelves, a car park, a till, a bored university aged guy sitting reading a magazine behind the till. But, there were no customers, no cars in the car park, not even one for the employee, and the fact it was in the middle of the woods in the Chesapeake estuary.

"This shouldn't be here," Annabeth whispered behind me, I was glad I wasn't the only one, "it's wrong."

"What do you think?" I asked, "ogres, harpies, hydras?"

"It's a donut shop," Percy said exasperated, "it's perfectly normal."

"Shh."

"Why are whispering?" Tyson whispered, I smiled and patted him on the back.

"Tyson, do you smell any monsters?" I asked.

Tyson sniffed, "only donuts."

"Annabeth, Tyson went in, he bought donuts, he's fine," Percy said pointing at Tyson.

"Yes, but he is a monster," Annabeth said emphasising the word is.

"Aw, come on Annabeth, monster donuts does not mean monsters. It's a chain, we have them in New York," Percy said incredulously.

"A chain, but don't you think it's strange that one of them appeared immediately after you told Tyson to get donuts? Right here in the middle of the woods?"

"I thought about it, it did seem a little weird, but, I mean, donut shops aren't really high on my list of sinister forces," Percy said nervously.

"It could be a nest," Annabeth said.

"Yes, but a nest of what?" I asked.

"Haven't you ever wondered how franchise stores pop up so quickly?" Annabeth asked, which meant she was giving Percy the full explanation. "One day, there's nothing, then boom, a new burger place, or a coffee shop," my wards went off, I waved at Annabeth, she looked at me, I pointed back the way we came she nodded. "Percy some of the chains replicate so fast because they're linked to the life force of monsters, some child of Hermes worked it out in the fifties, they breed," Annabeth trailed off, "no sudden moves."

I could hear it, something slithering towards us, 'please don't be a Basilisk,' I begged internally, I slowly turned around, it was a hydra. A hydra is terrifying, this particular one was the size of a rhino, it was hissing, its seven heads writhing in a all directions, its skin was leathery on the bottom and scaly ontop, rather comically each neck had a bib at the bottom which read: I'm a monster donut kid. Percy made to draw his sword, Annabeth stopped him, the glow of bronze would have alerted the hydra, the diamond shaped heads look around, we slowly backed away, until Tyson stepped on a twig.

"Scatter," Annabeth shouted, we all jumped into motion, we dove away as the hydra spat poison in our direction, the green liquid hit a tree, which instantly started smoking and fell on Tyson. Percy tackled him to the side just as the hydra snapped at him, the tree instead fell on two of the hydra's heads, the hydra wailed in outrage, before yanking its heads out and screaming at the tree, it then coated the tree in acid from all seven heads, reducing the tree to a pile of goop.

" **Reducto** ," I cast, the spell hit the hydra, knocking it to the side, " **expulso** ," the explosion knocked the hydra back a bit. It turned to me and hissed its outrage before shooting acid at me, " **protego duo** ," the acid splashed harmlessly against a shield, " **ventus** ," the acid returned to the hydra, which hissed in anger, but nothing happened, "of course it's immune to its own acid," I muttered. Percy took the opportunity to remove a head, the hydra wailed in pain, " **incendio** ," the spell missed the stump, meaning that two more heads grew in its place I heard Annabeth berate Percy, but I was more focused on the hydra. Tyson charged the hydra and punched it in the stomach, " **colloshoo** ," I tried desperately, it fail, hydras don't have shoes, the hydra's tail slapped Tyson into a tree.

Then something weird happened, I heard a chugging sound like an old steam engine, it was making the riverbank shake slightly. "What is that?" Annabeth asked dodging acid.

"Steam engine," Tyson said punching a head in the teeth, the head spat out several tooth shards.

" **Incarcerous** ," I cast, magical rope shot from my wand and wrapped the heads together, " **conjuro fulguris** ," I cast, the hydra screamed in pain and slumped, but didn't dissolve, I wasn't strong enough, the hydra turned to me, magical fatigue was setting in, then the chugging sound got weirder.

I heard a familiar female voice call, "there, fire the thirty two pounder!"

"They're too close, m'lady," a gravelly male voice called.

"Damn the heroes," the girl called, "full steam ahead," I realised I was in the way of the cannon, I jumped to the side and covered myself with a shield, as Percy, Tyson and Annabeth hit the dirt.

There was an earth shattering boom, a flask of light and a lot of smoke, and the hydra exploded into guts, which would have covered me if I hadn't got my shield, the others weren't so lucky. "Gross," Annabeth called as the hydra guts evaporated off her clothes and skin.

"Steamship," Tyson called with childlike glee.

I coughed on the gunpowder smoke, chugging towards us was an US civil war era ironclad, lining the deck were soldiers in grey uniform, they had semi-transparent skin, which showed their bones, on the prow in mossy letters was the CSS BIRMINGHAM, standing in full armour, and next to the smoking cannon that saved us was Clarisse.

"Good to see you Clarisse," I called trying to be polite.

"Losers," she said sneering like Draco, "I suppose I have to rescue you, come aboard."


	22. Chapter 22

"You are in so much trouble," Clarisse said after finishing showing us around, she took particular care to show us the refitted guns. Everywhere we went we were stared at by the bearded semi-transparent sailors, they liked Annabeth because she was from Virginia, they liked Percy because of his surname, until they found out he was a New Yorker, they really didn't like me, because I'm British, apparently they don't let grudges go, even against my ancestors. Tyson was terrified, he insisted Annabeth hold his hand, which she wasn't too thrilled about. We were all cramped into the captain's quarters, eating peanut butter and jam sandwiches and crisps off fine china, "Tantalus expelled you four until the day after the end of the universe, Mr D said if you returned he'll turn you into squirrels and run you over in his SUV."

"Did they give you this ship?" Percy asked.

Clarisse scoffed, "course not, my father did."

"Ares?" Percy asked, startled.

Clarisse sneered in a way that made Draco seem mature, "you think your father is the only one with sea powers? The spirits on the losing side of every war owe a tribute to Ares. That's their curse for being defeated. I prayed to my father for naval transport and here it is. These guys will do anything I tell them, won't you Captain?"

The captain looked around the room with a hungry stare in his glowing green eyes, "if it means an end to this infernal war, ma'am, peace at last, well do anything, destroy anyone."

Clarisse smiled a smile that made Tyson gulp, "destroy anyone, I like that."

"Clarisse, Luke might be after the fleece too. We saw him, he's got the co-ordinates and he's heading south, he has a cruise ship full of monsters," Annabeth said before being cut off my Clarisse.

"Good, I'll blow him out the water."

"You don't understand, we have to combine forces, let us help you."

"No!" Clarisse shouted pounding a fist on the table, "this is my quest, smart girl! Finally I get to be the hero, and you lot will not steal my chance."

"You think that's what this is all about?" I asked, exhaustion was making it hard to keep my eyes open, "keep the honour, keep the glory, we just want camp to be safe and to stop Luke if possible, you can take all the credit, you left your cabin mates behind so you could take all the credit. You understand the basic principles of a fight, you aren't a strategist like a child of Athena, but you aren't as stupid as you pretend to be, surely you understand that four demigods and a Cyclops stand a better chance than a lone demigod, even if that lone demigod has a confederate ironclad."

"Of course I understand that, but this is my quest, I left my cabin mates behind to protect camp, it needs all the protecting it can get, but you four left, you should be protecting camp, I can blow up that monster myself and claim the fleece, I don't need you to help, I am perfectly capable."

"You, maybe, but what if your ship sinks entering the sea of monsters?" I asked, "there are only two ways in, but they both put your ship in jeopardy. Is it not better to be safe than sorry?"

Clarisse's jaw opened and closed, before she slumped in defeat, "Captain, assign them hammocks, if they cause trouble, show them what we do to spies and traitors."

"Of course milady," the captain led us through the ship and assigned us some bunks in a relatively uncramped section of the ship, I fell asleep almost instantly.

* * *

When I woke up, Percy and Tyson were still asleep, I hadn't managed to save much from the demigod hideout, the hydra had melted the place quite thoroughly, I had my mood ring, Janet's bracelet, a couple of bags of various long-life foods, some water and a change of clothes. I changed into the change of clothes, then magically cleaned them, I found a reflective surface and magically combed out my hair, I then went to find Clarisse, I needed something to do.

"What do you want?" Clarisse asked gruffly as I walked into the room, she was studying a chart that was lying on the captain's desk; it was beyond me.

"I was wondering if you had anything for me to do, I am here, so I thought I'd make myself useful."

"The captain's men are more than capable of doing their jobs, if you really want something to do set up wards. That is something you witches can do, right?"

"Yep, of course," I walked out the room, along the corridor and out onto the deck, it was a sunny day and Annabeth was already out on the deck and was standing at the prow staring at the horizon.

Annabeth turned to face me as she heard me approach, she smiled, "good morning Alice, I take it Percy and Tyson aren't up yet?"

"Nope, excuse me," I said, Annabeth stepped aside, I started put wards on the prow of the boat, "I told Clarisse I'd ward the boat." I explained, satisfied I turned and walked along the railing of the boat, stopping every few steps to set wards, the sailors looked at me strangely, several made crosses in the air or other gestures to ward off evil, I suppose it makes sense, they were from a more superstitious time, but it still hurt slightly.

When I'd finished Clarisse came out on deck, "I'm finished, the wards aren't as strong as if, say Janet made them, but they should hold weaker monsters at bay, and it will slow any stronger monsters."

"Good, have you seen the Captain?" I pointed in the direction I last saw Captain Creepy, Clarisse nodded and walked off.

I stood next to Annabeth, we made small talk which inevitably devolved into teasing and talking about our respective years, after a while Tyson joined us, but didn't say anything, he just sat there.

Sometime later, an alarm sounded and the sailors started rushing about. "All hands on deck!" The Captain shouted from below deck, his voice echoing through the corridors, "find Lady Clarisse, where is that girl?"

"What's going on?" I asked one of the sailors, he went wide-eyed before muttering a reply in a terrified voice.

"We're arriving at the Sea of Monsters," he then rushed off back to work.

A rather distracted Percy walked up to join us, he had a look on his face similar to when Janet tries to work out something, "what's wrong?" Annabeth asked, "another dream?" Percy nodded absently.

Clarisse then marched up onto the deck, she grabbed binoculars from an undead sailor and looked at horizon, "at last, Captain, full steam ahead."

I looked at the horizon, I couldn't really see much, there were a couple of dark splodges on the horizon, they were too far off, and shrouded in sea spray and mist of both kinds. The ship started to move faster, the engines groaning in complaint, "too much strain on the engines, not meant for deep water," Tyson muttered.

About twenty minutes later the dark splodges came into focus, they were an island, about thirty metres tall with sheer cliffs on all sides, to the south of that, was a massive storm, it looked almost as if the sky was fighting the sea. "Hurricane?" Annabeth asked hopefully,

"No, Charybdis," Clarisse said grinning.

"Bless you," I muttered.

"Are you crazy?" Annabeth asked paling significantly.

"Only way into the Sea of Monsters, straight between Charybdis and her sister Scylla," Clarisse pointed up the cliff, my wards were not going to stop Scylla for long.

"What do you mean the only way?" Percy asked, "the sea is wide open! Just sail around," I facepalmed.

Clarisse rolled her eyes, "don't you know anything? If I try to sail around them, they just appear in my path again. If you want to get into the Sea of Monsters you have to sail through them."

"What about the Clashing Rocks?" Annabeth asked, "that's another gateway, Jason used it."

"I can't blow apart rocks with my cannons," Clarisse said smiling, "monsters on the other hand."

"You are crazy," Annabeth said decidedly.

"Watch and learn Wise Girl," Clarisse turned to the Captain, "set course for Charybdis!"

"Aye m'lady," Captain Zombie said.


	23. Chapter 23

The engines started groaning and the plating started rattling like an earthquake was going on, Percy started talking to Clarisse, I decided that it was a very good idea to pray to Poseidon and Hermes for a safe journey, the engines were starting to heat up so much that I could feel it through the floor. We were closing in on Charybdis, she was making a sound like a massive toilet flushing, it was slurping, sucking sound that sickened me, and she had atrocious table manners. Charybdis took about three minutes to inhale everything with about half a mile in any direction, to avoid her we had to skirt Scylla's cliff. Despite their imminent second death the sailors didn't seem to care, I suppose once you've died once you get over the fear of it.

"You still have your flask full of winds?" Annabeth asked Percy.

Percy nodded, "but it's too dangerous to use with a whirlpool like that, more wind might just make the whole thing worse."

"What about controlling the water? You're a son of Poseidon, you've done that before."

Percy scrunched his face in concentration, "I, I, I can't," Percy said miserably.

"Alice, you got any spells that might work?" Annabeth asked.

"Not beyond zapping Charybdis, but we saw how well that works with the Hydra, well, Charybdis is several times stronger, so my spells will be much weaker, I might be able to stop Scylla for a while, but not Charybdis."

"We need a backup plan, this isn't going to work," Annabeth said stamping her foot, I went through magical escape methods in my head, but none would work.

"Annabeth is right, Engine's no good," Tyson said, surprising everyone, I'd forgotten he was there.

"What do you mean?" Annabeth asked.

"Pressure, piston needs fixing," I left the conversation at this point to try and think of a plan, the ship lurched and I was suddenly thrown to the deck, we were caught in Charybdis' pull, alarms went off, Clarisse shouted, Tyson ran below deck with an engineer.

"Think Alice, think, what would Janet do?" I asked myself as I paced the deck, we were getting closer than comfort to Charybdis, my only plan was to electrocute Charybdis, " **conjuro fulguris** ," lightning forked at Charybdis, but had no visible effect, unless I'd missed. The spray and mist cleared, and I saw Charybdis. At first she was a craggy black reef with a fig tree clinging on top, attached to the reef was a massive maw, huge moss coloured teeth the size of the lifeboat from the Princess Andromeda, and slimy lips that looked like fat squid tentacles. The teeth were attached to bands of rusted metal with bits of fish, driftwood, and metal stuck behind the band. Suddenly we opened fire, three shots, one broke a tooth, one was eaten, and one rebounded and knocked off Ares's flag, " **conjuro fulguris**." I cast, this time I know it hit, I hit the metal, Charybdis flinched slightly, but nothing else happened, the vibrations in the ship died down, and we slowly started backing away, Tyson must have fixed the engines.

Suddenly Charybdis' maw closed, leaving the an absolute calm, then just as suddenly, Charybdis opened and spat out everything inedible including our cannonballs, we were thrown back on a massive wave, I had to hold the railing to not fall off. We were hurtling towards Scylla's cliffs, which is never a good thing. "Scylla," came the yells, I looked around to see Scylla's head carry off another sailor.

" **Reducto** ," the spell destroyed one of Scylla's heads, making her drop her sailor shaped prize, I saw another one, " **reducto** ," the head exploded. There were too many of them, I carefully made my way back to the others, destroying heads as I went, there were so many of them, I missed most of them, "there's too many of them," I shouted taking out another head.

"Lifeboats, quick," Annabeth shouted.

"They'll never get clear of the cliffs!" Clarisse shouted, "we'll all be eaten."

"We have to try, Percy, the flask," Percy handed Annabeth the flask.

"I can't leave Tyson," I stopped him from doing anything.

"You'll never get close," I said, behind us the sailors were uncovering the lifeboats, I got one of Scylla's heads, turned back and Percy had gone, I saw him run for the hatch, Annabeth bundled me into a lifeboat.

"We have to go," Annabeth said, the three of us got into a lifeboat, and the sailor launched us.

"Good luck," one sailor said, Annabeth grabbed the flask and twisted the top, the flask exploded, sending us rocketing forward, I saw a figure falling from Scylla's cliff, there was only one person on that ship who could have gotten out of Scylla's grip. It was at that moment that the Birmingham exploded.

* * *

I cried, Annabeth cried, even Clarisse shed one tear before catching herself, we'd just witnessed the death of two heroes, I was now terrified we were going to lose, when suddenly I heard a loud splash. I looked up, an unconscious Percy was lying in the water, his chest was rising and falling rhythmically, "Annabeth, look," Annabeth looked over the edge, she smiled slightly, we both reached over and pulled Percy into the boat, he was uninjured, of course, the water had healed him.

"So, what's the plan Wise Girl?" Clarisse asked after we secured Percy.

"Survive, find the fleece, meet Chiron in Miami," Annabeth said, I looked over the edge, there was an oar in the water and some uniforms and a weird bottle labelled as vitamins, I pulled them aboard.

"I have an idea," I said.

In short order we had a makeshift sail setup in the middle of the boat, when we got it set up Percy woke up, he tried to sit up, but Annabeth stopped him, "rest, you're going to need it."

"Tyson?" He asked hopefully.

"Percy, I'm really sorry," Annabeth said sadly.

"He may have survived," Percy said half-heartedly, "I mean fire can't kill him."

Percy told us about a dream he had and had been having, apparently in less than a day, Polyphemus the mostly blind Cyclops planned to marry Grover, thinking him a female Cyclops; Polyphemus also had the Golden Fleece and had been using it to lure satyrs for centuries, which was why none ever returned from looking for Pan. That was messed up.

I checked our supplies; we had a bottle of Dr Pepper, the empty flask of winds, an airtight bag of ambrosia, a few shirts that weren't used to make the sail, Annabeth's cap, Percy's magic sword, Janet's bracelet and my mood ring (which would finally be useful without Tyson nearby) and that weird bottle of multivitamins. Percy declared us to be one hundred and thirteen nautical miles west by north west of Polyphemus.

"We have to go that far in less than a day, assuming Polyphemus doesn't change his mind and marry Grover early."

"Yeah, you can never trust a Cyclops," Percy said bitterly.

"I'm sorry Percy, I was wrong about Tyson, okay? I wish I could tell him that," Annabeth said whilst staring out to sea.

"Would you two shut it, I'm trying to sleep," Clarisse shouted from her place in the prow of the boat.

"I just remembered something," I said, I grabbed the flask, " **aguamenti** ," the flask filled with water.

"Well, at least we won't get dehydrated, well done Alice," Annabeth said smiling.

"I don't suppose there's a chance of food?" Clarisse asked, Annabeth glared at her, "what?" Clarisse shrugged, "I'm hungry."

I decided to go to sleep, there was little chance of anything happening, and I'd used most my strength against Scylla.


	24. Chapter 24

"Wake up," Annabeth said, shaking me awake, Percy was waking Clarisse, "we've arrived somewhere," I groggily sat up, we were coming into dock at an island resort, which for some reason was in the middle of a magic sea. It was a small island with a small mountain in the middle, dozens of white buildings surrounded the harbour and beach, there was a forest on the far side of the island, and palm trees everywhere, in the harbour was a weird collection of boats from galleons to rafts, we docked alongside a pleasure yacht.

"Welcome," the lady who greeted us on the dock looked like a flight attendant, she was a tall blond in a blue suit uniform, her blond hair was pulled up into a ponytail, her makeup was perfect her blue eyes sparkled, and her perfect white smile was meant for someone on the Princess Andromeda, rather than our little rowboat. I looked around, there was a propeller plane, a Lear-jet, a news helicopter resting on a small airfield, there was also a submarine, five yachts, a ship marked as the US Cyclops, and more dugouts than you could shake a stick at. "Is this your first time with us," when none of us answered she started writing on a clipboard. "Let's see, a herbal wrap to start for the young ladies, and a complete makeover for the young gentlemen," she made more notes. "Right," she smiled, "well, I'm sure C.C. will want to speak with you personally before the luau, come, please," she turned and started walking, we followed, something about this was suspicious, it tickled at the edge of my brain, but I couldn't remember. It was probably a trap, but we were tired and hungry, so we had to roll with it.

We walked past swimming pools, water slides, banquets, fountains, a gym, stables, everywhere we went we were greeted by smiles from pretty twenty something year old women, this was suspiciously familiar, but I couldn't remember where, I got distracted by the animals, turtles, leopards, horses and even a couple of eagles. This wasn't the Amazonians, or there would be weapons and monsters and maybe forklifts, rather than just amazingly beautiful young women in bikinis, Annabeth had to wake up Percy from daydreams a couple of times to keep his attention on walking at times, not that we could blame him, they were rather distracting. We soon arrived at the main hotel on the island; it was four floors tall, with tall arches and glass doors everywhere.

We walked through the tall, empty, glass and marble atrium and entered an equally tall glass and marble corridors, which twisted and turned to the point where we were utterly lost, which was probably the intentions of the architect. We then ascended a flight of stairs and started hearing singing, a lullaby of some kind, sung in an ancient language; it was beautiful, yet mournful. Despite it not being in English or Greek, I could still understand the themes, it was a song of olive groves, rainbows and the rise of the sun, and it made me at peace. Then I recognised it, the song was magic, designed to make us accept whatever happened, a bit like when one of the Aphrodite kids used charmspeak to try and make me fall in love with Hypnos' son Clovis, I had fought that off. But, this was far stronger, too strong for me to fight so I had to go with it and pray.

* * *

We entered a big room, which somehow was on the top floor, despite us going up one level, the entire far wall was a window, it overlooked the massive crescent bay, with the beautiful buildings, beautiful people, and hodgepodge of boats in the harbour. Another wall was all mirrors, which gave me a headache to look at as they reflected into infinity, tapestries that seemed alive and 3d took up the other two walls, they were impressive, but after Hogwart's moving painting they seemed almost normal. The room was full of expensive looking pure white furniture, which made know instantly that the owner was evil and had bad intentions, I had seen enough movies to know the cliché, but it was hard to believe that seeing as who the women was who had been singing. She was perfect, her eyes were almond shaped dark brown eyes, they were almost like Janet's in colour, and long blond hair, like Janet, in fact she looked like an older version of Janet, dressed in a silky black dress, with perfectly sewn deer that seemed alive running through a forest.

"You're a daughter of Hecate, aren't you?" I asked as we entered the room, it would explain the magic song and the hidden spar.

She laughed a beautiful ringing laughter, "yes I am," she sounded so much like Janet it made my heart heavy and I felt homesick for the first time in my life. "Although you should know it's impolite to ask questions without introducing yourselves first, of course I already know your names, and you know mine, but for civility's sake, I am C.C. and welcome to my island." Something was tickling at the edge of my mind, no, it was more like it was head-butting me and I was ignoring it. Suddenly some guinea pigs in a cage in the corner started squeaking their little lungs out, I looked at the little animals, there was a spell on the critters, but I couldn't tell what it was.

We introduced ourselves, an awestruck Percy going last, she studied each of us in turn, but when it came to Percy the study was more of a glare, like he was something she stepped in and couldn't scrape off. "Oh dears, you need my help," she said at last, she clapped her hands, and the lady in the suit reappeared, "Hylla, take these three on a tour, will you? Show them what we have available. The clothing will need to change, and the hair, my goodness."

I knew I wasn't the perfect specimen after spending two days on a quest, but I liked my hair, so the way C.C. was talking was starting to annoy me, and something about her was just generally riling me up. Once again came the feeling, it felt like a memory was trying to surface, 'the magic, daughter of Hecate, the weaving, hating men, guinea pigs,' but something was stopping it, and I didn't know what.

"We will do a full image consultation after I've spoken with this young gentleman."

"But, what's wrong with my hair?" Annabeth sounded genuinely hurt.

"I don't do all this prissy fancy clothes and ridiculous hair," Clarisse said angrily.

"My dears, you are all lovely, really! But you are not showing off yourselves or your talents at all, so much wasted potential," despite knowing it was charmspeak I still found it hard to disagree, there were all the little things that were always on the edge of my mind, especially when I compared myself to someone like C.C.

"Wasted?" Annabeth asked, she sounded confused, like she was in a daze, she must be trying to fight the charmspeak, I tried as well, but it wasn't working.

"Well, surely you are not happy the way you are! My goodness, there's not a single person on the planet who is, but, don't worry, we can improve anyone here at the spa. Hylla will show you what I mean, you, my dears, need to unlock your true selves," that line was so cheesy that I managed to break the charmspeak, but the others were still swaying to her words. I still couldn't get to the memory, it was tickling at the edge of my mind, I'd grab for it and it would be pulled away, I grabbed for it again, but this time I got something, before it was pulled away. I got part of the story of the Odyssey, i knew it wasn't the full story, I was still missing bits C.C. glared at me before being drawn away by Annabeth.

"But, what about Percy?" Annabeth asked she sounded strained as she said it, I wasn't really paying attention, I was lost in my own thoughts.

'C.C. glared at me in that moment where I grabbed my memory,' I thought, 'that has to mean she was a legilimencer, which makes sense, she's Janet's sister, but why is she suppressing my memories? And why the Odyssey? I'll never get answers while she's in the room because I can't break her legilimency spells, however, to suppress the memory of three demigods must be taking its strain, so if we get far enough away the spell will weaken and I will be able to break it.'

When I reached this realisation I found myself being lead out the room again and to the spa proper, where in a whirlwind of activity several attendants washed and braided my hair. They put me into a sleeveless silk dress that reminded me of C.C.'s, all the time I was grabbing at the memory, I could now feel C.C.'s spell, it was weakening. I felt makeup being put on my face, I hate makeup, but I put up with it whilst I tried to get my memory back, slowly, carefully I removed the spell, until the memory rushed back to me, the entire Odyssey. I sifted through the Odyssey until the story of Circe, she turned men into pigs, but she might have changed her mind and turned them into guinea pigs, everything else fit, daughter of Hecate, weaving, hypnotic singing it had to be Circe. The attendants finally left us alone and Hylla led us out the room, when we were out of earshot of the other attendants I stupefied her.

"Guys, Percy is trouble," I said as I dragged Hylla into a cupboard we had passed.

"Why? We're on an island paradise," Clarisse said in a dreamy voice.

"Snap out of it, this is Circe's island, I think Percy got turned into a rodent," I started walking in a direction I hoped lead to Circe.

Annabeth gasped, "that explains everything, why didn't I think of that? Circe, like all children of Hecate, is capable of being a legilimencer, she's been suppressing our memories."

We eventually reached Circe's room, I was really nervous, there was no doubt in my mind that we'd have to fight our way out. The problem was, Circe was a daughter of Hecate, and I knew there was no way I could defeat her in a duel, even if she probably wasn't as powerful as Janet, she was still going to be powerful and experienced, two things I was not.

"We need to get to those vitamin tablets Percy got given, I think they'll undo Circe's spell," Annabeth said, it was a plan based on a guess, but it was better than no plan.


	25. Chapter 25

"Miss C.C.?" I asked as I entered the room, I heard a faint curse and a guinea pig squealed, "where's Percy?" We had to keep up the charade as long as possible; I saw Percy's jeans on the floor, pushed carelessly under the loom.

"He's having one of our treatments, my dear. Not to worry, you three look wonderful, what did you think of the tour?" I knew Circe was trying to charmspeak us, but her words rung hollow now that I knew who she was.

"Drop the act Circe," Clarisse shouted, removing all subtlety from our plan, "give us back Prissy and we'll be on our way."

Circe laughed, "You need not worry, I mean you no harm."

"Said the spider to the fly," I muttered.

"Give us back Percy," Annabeth shouted.

"Forget him, join me, and learn the ways of sorcery," Circe said raising her arms, "your friend will be well cared for. He'll be shipped to a wonderful new home on the mainland, the kindergartners will adore him. Meanwhile, you three will be wise, power and beautiful for all eternity, you'll have everything you ever wanted," it was so tempting, all the magic and the knowledge, then something dawned on me.

"Except those that I love," I muttered as I thought of Dad and Janet, John, Chiron, Harry, Ron, Hermione, even Drake and the Stolls, if I took up her offer I'd be with her for eternity, and I didn't want that. I wanted to see them again. I wanted to help them. I wanted to tell them about the quest. I wanted to save camp, not run away, and hide on a magic island, leaving the responsibility to someone else.

"Let us think about it," Annabeth said quietly, she was thinking about it, "give us two minutes, to just say goodbye."

I was about to object, as was Clarisse by the looks of things, but Circe cut us off. "Of course dears, two minutes and to make sure you have absolute privacy," she waved her hand and a spell triggered a mechanism, slamming bars over the windows, she then left the room, looking the door as she left.

The dreamy, thoughtful look melted off Annabeth's face, she rushed over to the cage and started talking to the guinea pigs, "Annabeth, we can't abandon our quest," I said urgently.

"We're not," she replied, scanning the room, she rushed over to Percy's clothes and withdrew the bottle of multivitamins, removed the cap and took out three tablets and handed one to each of us, "eat it." I sighed and ate the little Minotaur, I felt tingly all over as magic flowed into me, it was like someone cast a protection charm all over me.

The door banged open and Circe walked in, flanked by two attendants, both tall, blond, leggy, and dressed in suits, "well, how fast two minutes pass. What is your answer my dears?"

"This," Annabeth said, she drew her knife, I pulled my wand out my pocket and Clarisse picked up a chair, I hadn't realised she was unarmed until she did that.

Circe stepped back in shock before smiling, "really, little girls, a knife, a stick and a chair against my magic? Is that wise?" Her attendants raised their hands, preparing a spell; one of the guinea pigs went crazy and started squeaking its little heart out. "What will their makeovers be? Something small and ill tempered. I know, a shrew," blue fire coiled out her fingers and slithered over to us.

'Please work, please work, please work,' I prayed silently as the blue flames rose up around us, I felt the flames try to enter me, but something stopped them.

Annabeth lunged at Circe; she had her knife against Circe's neck, "how about turning me into a panther? One that has its claws to your throat," as taunts go, it was a pretty bad one.

"How?" Circe asked in outrage, Annabeth shook the bottle of multivitamins at her, "curse Hermes and his multivitamins. They are such a fad, they do nothing for you," Annabeth threw the tablets to me, so I walked over to the guinea pig cage and took of the lid.

I poured the tablets into the tablets into the cage, the guinea pigs started eating the tablets, it worked, the guinea pigs started growing, and their fur turned into clothing.

"No," Circe shouted, "you don't understand, those are the worst!" Percy (who was thankfully wearing clothes) finished his transformation, as had about a dozen others, who appeared to be pirates. One was wearing a stained white shirt, a red coat, brown britches, a floppy felt hat, knee length leather boots, a pair of bandoliers with six flintlock pistols, a cutlass and a dagger, most iconic of all was the shaggy mane of black hair and a long black beard. The rest were less impressive, dressed in stained white shirts, brown britches and barefoot, however, one did have an eyepatch, and all held cutlasses.

"What has the witch done t'me?" He shouted in a harsh gruff voice.

"I recognise you, you're Edward Teach, son of Ares," Annabeth said.

"Indeed I be, although, most just call me Blackbeard, and there be the witch who captured me an' the lads, run 'er through men, then I mean to find a bowl of celery," the pirates cheered and chased Circe and her attendants out the room, we grabbed some more practical clothes and got changed in the next room.

"We should leave before my brother gets back," Clarisse said, she was looking out the window, "Blackbeard just caught Circe."

Percy and Annabeth were lost in a moment, Annabeth had tackled Percy with a hug and were talking quietly, "come on lovebirds, let's go!" I said, causing Percy and Annabeth to spring apart in embarrassment.

* * *

We ran down the hillside, passing raging battles between scantily clad witches and pirates, the pirates were winning. We reached the harbour, and were soon faced with a problem, "which ship?" Annabeth asked.

"That one," Percy said pointing at a galleon.

"But -"

"I can make it work," we ran towards the ship and boarded, the ship had a name painted in gold on the front, The Queen Anne's Revenge.

"Those landlubbers be stealin' me ship!" Blackbeard shouted, "get em lads," the pirates swarmed towards us, there were more than before, they must have somehow freed more of their comrades.

"Mizzenmast," Percy shouted, the ropes and pulleys sprang into action, we had to duck as one rope almost took our heads off, the sail raised.

" **Ventus** ," the ship sailed forward, leaving some very angry pirate on the shoreline.

* * *

We sailed into the night, Percy at the wheel, Annabeth taking stock of our supplies, Clarisse was asleep, I was just sitting there, staring into the darkening horizon, thinking. I was thinking about camp, wondering anything was going, if everyone was still okay, they might not be, something might have attacked, they might be hurt, but there were enough people at camp to hold the fort. I thought about Janet, she was probably on her own adventure with her Dad, chasing a magic criminal or something, I thought about Harry, who was probably suffering at the hands of relatives. I wondered if anyone else was looking at the stars tonight, they were so bright, I could see them all; away from the cities all the stars were in the sky, twinkling away, I could see the constellations, and could name most of them.

At some point I drifted off to sleep, I don't know when, but suddenly I was on the Princess Andromeda, in Luke's room, shadows swirled around me and the sarcophagus, they whispered at me, " _beware, traps, trickery_."

A laugh that sounded like an earthquake came from beneath me, it had to be Kronos, his voice was deep and hollow, laced with power, it made me tremble just hearing it, " _you don't have the courage young ones, you can't stop me._ "

I stepped forward, 'if I open the coffin, I can kill him,' I reasoned, sword in hand I stepped forward again, the shadows swirled again.

" _Beware, traps, trickery_ ," the voices said.

"Well, seaweed brain?" A voice said, I looked left, there stood Percy and a girl. She was tall, dressed in punk clothing, with spiky dyed black hair, dark eyeliner around her bright blue eyes, and black lipstick. "Well? Are we going to stop him or not?" Percy didn't move or answer, she sighed and rolled her eyes, "fine, leave it to me and aegis."

She tapped her wrist chain and they transformed into a shield with the face of medusa pressed into the centre, it gave me the chills just being near it, she drew her sword and walked forward, the shadows parting before her whispering their mantra. " _Beware, traps, trickery_ ," then a new one, " _betrayal thrice, tutor, friend, family,_ " that surprised me, 'was it a warning, or a statement of their past?' I mused to myself.

The girl reached the coffin and pushed off the lid, she stayed frozen with a look of disgust, and hatred on her face, "no, how could you?" She screamed as the coffin engulfed her in light.

I was whisked away in the manner of dreams to the dream, I saw camp, it was ruined, the strawberries were uprooted, the big house was torched, the cabin were rubble, the amphitheatre, the weapon shed, even the forest was burning, everything was ruined. There were skeletons everywhere, " _this is the future of your kind, young demigod_ ," the voice of Kronos rumbled beneath me, " _you will fail in your quest and your camp will fall, then without their children, the Olympians will perish._ " I saw movement, a small child was digging through the remains of the weapons shed, a shadow shot out of the ground and stabbed straight through the child, who instantly crumbled to dust. A tall figure in black armour that swirled like shadows walked out of the ruins of the Big House. " _Thus died the last demigod_ , _I shall win, you will never defeat me, I am inevitable"_ the figure in black melted into the floor, and then I woke up.

* * *

I woke up in cold sweats, as I focus on my environment, I was in a hammock, Clarisse was in the next one, I got up and walked up onto the deck. We weren't moving as quickly as before, Percy had gone below deck, leaving Annabeth at the wheel, she didn't see me, so I walked over to the railing and stared into the sunrise. Question swirled in my head, the more I thought about them the less answers I had, and more questions rose. 'Who was the punk girl? Where did she get that shield? What did she see in the sarcophagus? Where was Luke? Who was the figure in black? Was Kronos really inevitable? And what did the shades mean by thrice betrayed, which friend? Which family member? Which teacher?' My thoughts danced and weaved like fog for hours as I watched the sun crawl over the horizon, I was pulled out of my melancholy by Annabeth.

"Alice, will you wake up the others? We're arriving at the land of the sirens."

"Yeah, sure," I replied. I went below deck and found Clarisse already up, she was sharpening her spear whilst eating breakfast, "Clarisse, all hands on deck, we're arriving at the island of the sirens," Clarisse grunted and walked out the room. Percy was asleep in a hammock, he was talking to himself.

"No, no, no, no, how could you?" I started to shake him awake, he shot upright.

"Percy, it's okay, it was all a dream," I said, he stared at me wide eyed before returning to normal.

"Alice, I had a nightmare, I don't know if it means something or not, but you were there, with a -"

"Punk girl with a Medusa shield?" I asked.

"Yeah, did you have the same dream?" I nodded.

"It seems likely, but that doesn't matter, we're nearing the island of the sirens and Annabeth wants all hands on deck," Percy nodded tiredly, I left him and returned to the deck.


	26. Chapter 26

When we assembled Annabeth handed around a pot of candle wax, which we used to make earplugs, Annabeth took none herself, "I want to hear them."

"Why?" Percy asked in surprise.

"They say that the sirens sing the truth about what you desire. They tell you things about yourself that you didn't even realise. That's what's so enchanting. If you survive, you become wiser. I want to hear them. How often will I get the chance?" Deciding it wasn't worth the argument Percy commanded one of the ropes to wrap around Annabeth, I removed her dagger so she wouldn't be able to cut her way free, we put in the earplugs and started sailing.

The coastline of the island was craggy and rocky with bits of boats of all kinds floating amongst the jagged tooth like spires, the island itself was shrouded in mist, so nothing of the sirens could be seen. Annabeth suddenly perked up at the mast, she was shouting and struggling against the rope, Clarisse was keeping an eye on her from a safe distance. I was getting curious about the music, what did it sound like and why did it make people kill themselves? Even Chiron's music wasn't that bad. I caught myself reaching for the earplugs, I didn't remember reaching for them, Percy had been doing the same but had stopped. Clarisse, on the other hand, had almost reached the earplug, I ran over, and grabbed her forearm, she jumped like she'd woken from a daydream and frowned, I released her, she was still frowning at herself. I turned to check on Annabeth, she was still trying to struggle out the ropes, but they weren't budging an inch, she appeared to be shouting curses, but we couldn't hear her, but I'm sure it was quite impressive.

We sailed passed the island for hours, Captain Percy keeping us on the right course, Annabeth several times tried to convince us we had passed the music, but she wasn't successful, she always had this look in her eyes of a desperate longing, it was never genuine, as clever as Annabeth was, she wasn't good at masking her emotions. The final time she went limp we were miles from the island, the craggy graveyard nothing but a speck on the horizon, Clarisse looked at me questioningly, I drew my wand and nodded, Clarisse stepped forward and untied the ropes, Annabeth collapsed to her knees rather than try and escape. Clarisse removed her earplugs and nodded, I did the same, Percy walked over and helped Annabeth up.

"So, was it worth it, punk?" Clarisse asked, her voice laced with contempt.

"I don't know," Annabeth said, "I discovered my fatal flaw, but I don't know if that's good or bad."

I thought about it for a while after that, 'what was Annabeth's fatal flaw? what was mine? Janet's? Clarisse's? Percy's? Think logically here Alice, what is the first thing you think of when you think of all these people? Annabeth is clever, heroic, and proud. Janet is heroic, pretty but not vain, clever, powerful, logical and proud. Clarisse is heroic, strong, proud, stubborn, self-centred and quick to anger. Percy is heroic, he can be smart when it comes to thinking outside the box, he's loyal, but I don't really know much about him. Annabeth's must be hubris, Janet's as well maybe, or maybe it's something to do with her way of seeing the world. Clarisse's is definitely wrath, and Percy is maybe something like loyalty, or heroism. But what about mine? I can't think about myself unbiasedly, so I can only guess, I'm about average intelligence, I'm not really proud, I'm better than most with a sword, I'm a bit stubborn, I'm as heroic as the next demigod, I'm not greedy, gluttonous, vain, angry. I'm too scared to admit my feelings, but is that really a flaw, I don't think so. What's my fatal flaw?'

"Land ho," Percy called, pulling me out of my self-analysis of my personality, I looked up and saw a saddle shaped island on the horizon, we had arrived at Polyphemus' island.

* * *

The island was weirdly pretty, when I imagined the island, I always thought of something from a fantasy book, like Mordor or Thakan'dar. All blasted black rocks, skulls, volcanoes, poisonous vapours and bottomless chasms, in hindsight it was a really stupid idea. The saddle shaped island was weirdly idyllic; it was a large grassy hill that had been split in two, it was green fields, tropical fruit trees, and white sandy beaches. There was a large chasm going across the island, only crossable by the world's most rickety and most obviously booby trapped rope bridge. The island was beautiful and unearthly, kind of like descriptions of paradise or Eden in books; the whole island buzzed with magic, it permeated every living thing on the island, I could feel it starting to soak into me even at a distance. I could see the magic dancing about as it flitted from plant to plant, it looked like an aurora, dozens of colours twirling, and twisting in the sunlight, it was all coming from a source just out of sight, the Golden Fleece. We all stood on the deck of the ship, and just drank in the beauty of the island.

"If we take the fleece away, will the island die?" Percy asked as a butterfly landed on my hand.

"It will fade back to normal over time," I said, "but it will take a while, it has been here a long time."

Percy nodded, Clarisse was looking agitated, "let's go get the fleece, and see about your satyr friend, before a certain Cyclops appears," I suddenly felt guilty, I had totally forgotten about Grover. We walked over to the ravine and looked down, there was a meadow full of hippo-sized sheep and on the side was a thin rocky path which lead up to the golden fleece, which hanging on a tree branch, "well, that's easy." As we watched a deer emerged from the undergrowth and scampered around the meadow, only to be set upon by a dozen sheep, the deer brayed and there was only the sound of gnashing teeth and the dying gurgles of the deer. After a minute, the sheep parted revealing bones that had been picked perfectly clean.

"Well great, piranha sheep," I said, "I think we'll need another plan."

"I could sneak past them," Annabeth suggested holding up her invisibility Yankees cap.

"And they might smell you and tear you apart," I looked carefully at the other wall of the ravine, there were several small holes in the wall of the craggy path, "besides, I think there's another guardian on the path, look at the suspicious holes in the ravine wall."

We eventually decided it was better to be safe than sorry, so we went around to the twenty metre high cliff on the back end of the island, "so who feels like a little rock climbing?" I asked.

Clarisse paled a little, "do we have to climb? Can't you just magic us to the top?"

"Nope, I can't apparate, and I can't levitate something as heavy as a person," I said, "I can make the climb easier, **colloshoo minima** , your shoes are now sticky and so should have better grip, they won't have the ability to hold your full weight, but they should stop you from slipping."

Climbing up Polyphemus' cliffs was a not much easier than climbing the Camp climbing wall, despite the fact there was no lava falling down at you, no traps set up by the Hephaestus cabin, not even random monsters. It was just rock climbing, a really tall rock climbing wall with barely any handholds, without the glue shoe spell we would have probably almost died a few times on the way up. When we reached top my fingers felt like they were liquidising, and I was totally out of breath, " **finite incantatem** ," I gasped, ending the spell.

After ten minutes of recovery we all turned to Annabeth, "so, what's the plan?" I asked, Annabeth stood there frozen for a moment before continuing.

" I will distract Polyphemus if he attacks, Percy go get Grover," Percy tried to protest, " I've got my invisibility cap, Clarisse, you and Alice get the fleece to the ship, then if all goes well, we have the Fleece, have rescued Grover and escaped, if not, don't fight him head on, it would be suicide."

We nodded and parted, Clarisse and I reached the fleece, it was so bright, I could practically see the magic coming off it, I gave it a quick once over to see if there were any traps, I couldn't see any, but the fleece could have been hiding some it was so magic. I nodded to Clarisse, we were about to lift off the fleece when a voice bellowed from the cave, "I smell half-bloods," Polyphemus marched out his cave in all his ugly glory. He looked a bit like Tyson, if someone took a knife to Tyson's face, his nose looked to have been broken several times, his one eye was milky white, and he was dressed up like a baby blue shepherd, complete with a baby blue crook, "come out, and face me half-bloods."

After a tense couple of minutes when no-one moved, Grover, dressed in a wedding dress, stumbled out the cave, "I told you," he said in a shrill voice, glancing fearfully at us, "I didn't smell anything dear, you were just hoping for something spectacular for the wedding feast."

"I suppose you're right dear," he said sadly, "are the wedding preparations almost complete?"

"Not quite, the cake is due tomorrow morning, but aside from that everything is here."

"Hmm, why do we need cake? We're Cyclops, we eat meat."

"But it's tradition, besides, I like cake," you can say a lot of things about Grover, but he's a great method actor.

"Hmph, fine, we will wait until the morning, but if the cake not here, we marry without," he led Grover back into the cave.


	27. Chapter 27

Clarisse and I lifted the fleece off the tree; it was a really large fleece, at least the size of the fleece of Polyphemus' guard sheep. Almost immediately, the island's beauty dimmed, then a voice inside the cave roared "DEMIGODS!" Polyphemus came barrelling out the cave.

"Hey ugly!" Annabeth shouted as she put on the cap.

"Who said that?" Polyphemus shouted looking for the source of the voice.

"Nobody."

"NOBODY!" Polyphemus yelled, "I will crush nobody, I will grind nobody's bones to dust, I will eat you nobody," a small stone hit the side of Polyphemus' head, "stop that," he picked up a small boulder and threw it at where he thought nobody was. Clarisse and I carried the fleece over to the cliff as Annabeth led Polyphemus away.

"So, how do we get this glorified thirty pound rug down there?" Clarisse asked.

"Drop it," I suggested, "The Queen Anne's Revenge is a big ship, and this isn't going to drift on the wind, and there's no way anyone can climb down there with this on their back, besides, if it falls in Percy can fish it out."

"It's worth a try," Clarisse shrugged, "on three, one, two three," we threw the fleece as far as we could, the glittering magic mess that was the fleece flew about as well as a brick as fell straight onto the deck of the ship with a satisfying thud. We turned back to the action where Percy was trying to sneak into Polyphemus' cave whilst Polyphemus tried to kill Annabeth, which I assumed he hadn't already, when suddenly there was a roar of triumph, "I got nobody, I finally got nobody!" Polyphemus had managed to get Annabeth, he had hit her with a glancing blow, which was enough to knock off her hat and send her sprawling, "nasty invisible girl, gonna be roasted with mango chutney." Polyphemus moved in for the kill as Annabeth sat up groggily, when I did something stupid.

" **Stupify** ," Cyclops, like Giants, Basilisks and several other monsters are immune to quite a few combat spells, including all stunning or paralysis spells, so I didn't expect anything to happen, so when the spell was deflected off his back I was not shocked, however, it did get his attention.

"Did you call me stupid? No-one call me stupid," Polyphemus asked before charging at me, I cursed and ran away. The thing about running away from Cyclops is that it is really hard, they have really long legs, so can walk faster than most people run, so when Polyphemus was chasing me he started gaining really quickly. I tried every spell I knew, but they just bounced off him, although magic ropes made him stumble before he ripped through that as well. I soon found myself backed up to the ravine as Polyphemus walked closer, I was panicking, my heart racing, my palms sweaty, my stomach fluttering in my throat as I tried to figure out a way out of this without dying. "Demigod going to make good eating, magic demigod make even better eating," Polyphemus said licking his lips, I took stock of my surroundings, Clarisse was tending to Annabeth, Percy had just taken Grover out the cave and was sprinting over, sword in hand, there some very interested sheep looking at me from the bottom of the canyon. Then there was a loud bellow and a large boulder hit Polyphemus in the side of the head sending him sprawling, I turned to see a tall figure standing on the edge of the cliff pick up another boulder, it was Tyson.

"Bad Polyphemus, hurt friend, try to eat friends," the boulder hit Polyphemus on the nose, causing him to cry out in pain.

Polyphemus staggered to his feet, "why young Cyclops do you help these morsels?"

"I help friends," Tyson said, while Polyphemus was distracted I carefully made my way behind the baby blue kilt wearing monster and over to Clarisse and Percy who were ready to fight Polyphemus whenever Tyson stopped talking, which he signalled by throwing a boulder hard enough to knock Polyphemus back to the cliff edge. We carefully made our way over to the monster, who groggily stood as we approached, he looked genuinely scared.

"Polyphemus," Percy said calmly, "we'll take our friend and the fleece and leave, or, you go into the canyon and a dozen boulders follow you and we still take the fleece and leave." Polyphemus didn't answer, we advanced a step, Polyphemus took a step back, and almost fell.

"Never," Polyphemus said quietly.

" **Ventus duo** ," Polyphemus whirled his arms to try and regain his balance before falling into the chasm.

"Well, that deals with that," Percy said as he recapped Riptide and returned it to his pocket, "thank the Gods you were here Tyson, I, I thought we'd lost you."

"Brother!" Tyson cheered crushing Percy in a hug that looked rather painful, the big softy had tears in his eyes, sorry, eye.

"Can we continue this on a boat, you know, away from an island with piranha sheep and a murderous Cyclops?" Clarisse suggested, Tyson suddenly became serious and nodded; he released Percy and then looked around in confusion.

"The boat's this way," I said pointing down at the cliff we'd climbed to get up, Grover, dressed still in his wedding dress, nervously clopped over.

"That's a long way down," he commented before swallowing nervously, "falling looks like it would hurt."

"Tyson and I could jump it," Percy suggested, "the sea would definitely cushion our fall, but I don't know about everyone else," I then had an idea.

"I just remembered a spell that can help, but I want to try it on Percy first, because it should slow his fall, so if I get it wrong no-one gets hurt. I don't know if I'll be able to use this on myself, and most magic won't affect Tyson, and I don't want to risk it, so we'll have to climb," I looked around at everyone, Clarisse was her usual angry self, Annabeth was just waking up, Percy looked weirdly excited, Tyson was smiling like always, and Grover looked scared of Tyson.

Percy shrugged, "it's worth a try." He walked along the ledge to a place where he could jump into the sea, "ready?" He asked looking at me.

"As I'll ever be," Percy ran and jumped, " **aresto momentum** ," everyone watched as Percy's descent slowed until he barely made a splash when he landed.

"Well, that worked," Clarisse said as she walked over to the ledge, she then ran and jumped.

" **Aresto momentum** ," just like Percy, Clarisse slowed and barely splashed in, Percy helped her up into the boat, the Annabeth went next, followed by Grover, leaving just Tyson and myself, "well, time to climb big guy."

"You going nowhere," Polyphemus yelled, behind us stood a very scraped up Polyphemus, "I eat you."

"Well, damn," I said as he charged, I panicked and did the first thing that came to mind, " **aresto momentum** ," Polyphemus stumbled and slowed.

"What did you do to me?" he roared as he was now moving at about half his usual speed, which made him much easier to dodge, I tried every spell that came to mind, but none had any real effect. Tyson choose that moment to tackle into Polyphemus, the smaller Cyclops ended up on top of the larger Cyclops, "why do you betray me like this brother?" Polyphemus wailed as his nose bled freely and his milky white eye blinked even more unfocused than usual.

Tyson punched him with enough force to crack the rock under Polyphemus' head, "I'm not your brother," he growled, Polyphemus struggled for a moment before passing out.

"Thanks Tyson," I said as I smiled and took a step forward before the world did a 360 and I passed out.

* * *

I really really hate whichever God is in charge of my dreams, I know Hypnos does sleep, but I think there's a more obscure God that does dreams, but whoever he is, or would it be whomever? No matter, he, or she, really hates me. That night I dreamt, whenever Demigods dream it is, if you hadn't noticed either, a) an advanced notice from a Deity of some kind, usually, that the world is going to end, b) hey buster, take notice of this, it will be useful in like three years' time, or c) a nightmare. That exhausted sleep I got all three. I was in the woods, not the woods at Camp with friendly Dryads every six feet who are look after orphan animals, or having a chat or joking with a satyr, nymph, whatever else lives in the woods, these were dark and snowy woods, and I was running. I didn't know what I was running from when I started the dream, I just started running, I knew whatever, or whoever, was behind me could never catch me. I was running with Janet, and some shapes, there were three of them, they appeared to be made of smoke, they looked human shaped, and human sized, ranging from early to late teens maybe, then I realised I had no control over my body. Realising I was just along for the ride I looked around, having no control of my own neck muscles I could only look out the corner of my eyes, I saw two small dog shaped objects, they were about maybe two feet high, shaped like an overweight spaniel. Suddenly the branches rustle in front of us and the largest wolf I ever saw lunged out the undergrowth, he was five feet tall from paw to shoulder "nowhere to run kiddies," he said in a gruff voice. "You're coming with me," I didn't know who he was, but I knew I didn't want to go with him, Janet raised her hand and the wolf flew off into the undergrowth as if a giant hand picked him up and threw him, we started running again.

* * *

The dream changed, I was now in a void, without a reference point I could not tell if I was moving, I was alone, then a mist appeared, it was the whispering mist from the dream of Luke's cabin, " _betrayal, thrice, teacher, family, friend._ " The whispers started, but they were different, louder, and more forceful. " _Time runs out. Caught in wars. Thrice. Betrayal. Thrice. Sacrifices made. Thrice. Caught in wars. Magic. Time. Civil. Sacrifices made. Teacher. Friend. Family. Betrayal. Teacher. Friend. Family. Help arrives late. Enemies are friends. Seven break. Seven burn. Enemies fall. Friends will fall furthest. The Earth will burn._ " Each sentence came from a different angle, from a different voice in the fog, and then the fog withdrew, as if it were scared away by something.

" _You cannot prevent my arrival,"_ the voice of Kronos rumbled, worryingly, it felt stronger and more powerful than the previous dream he invaded, _"my return was prophesied by the Oracle, yet my sons ignored it, it is clear that they are fools, so why fight for them?"_

 _"_ I fight monster, because you would destroy what humanity has built, and I rather like what we have built, yes the Gods may squabble and act foolishly, but they are content without intervening with humanity, and I want it to stay like that."

" _Western civilisation is rotten to the core, everything humanity touch they destroy, they even managed to kill the God of the Wilds._ "

"Some sections of humanity are evil, but Civilisation itself isn't evil, look at charities and medicine that save lives, beautiful works of art, literature, and music, they form the core of Western Civilisation, and they aren't corrupt or rotten."

" _You are a fool, and as such shall perish with the rest."_


	28. Chapter 28

I sat up suddenly and took stock of my surrounding, I was in a hammock, in a wooden cabin, the cabin was gently rocking, and I smelt salt, that meant I was on a boat, I looked myself over, travel stained clothing, my hair was a total bird's nest, so I set the magic comb on it. I was wearing a ring and a bracelet, the ring was a mood ring, it was glowing red, the bracelet, it was silver, shaped like a snake, with a single jewelled eye. Then I remembered, I was on the Queen Anne's Revenge, I was on a quest to find the Golden Fleece and return it to camp to save Thalia's tree from Luke's poison. The mood ring was telling me that monsters are near, that would be Tyson, the bracelet was one of Janet's, it turned into a sword, if I ever remembered I had these they would be really useful.

"Good, you're awake," said a grumpy voice, I turned to see Clarisse standing in the doorway, "we're almost at Florida, Annabeth has called a meeting, we need a plan apparently." She turned and left, not checking if I was following.

The crew meeting was held on deck as Tyson was too tall to fit under the deck, everyone looked tired but happy, and Grover was no longer wearing a wedding dress.

Percy spoke first, "Luke will be waiting for us at whichever port we go to."

"So we blow him up with the cannons, problem solved," Clarisse said gleefully.

"He's got wizards, witches, hags, the works," I reminded them, "our cannonballs would never reach the ship, and I am not strong enough to fight off however many magic users he has, we need subterfuge to win this."

"Fish pony," Tyson said, everyone turned to him, hoping for an elaboration.

"Oh, I get it," Annabeth said having a eureka moment, "Tyson means we take the hippocampi, leave the ship as a decoy."

"Yeah, fish ponies," Tyson said happily.

"They would go after us, we would need him to think the fleece is on the ship long enough to get the fleece to camp."

"I can take it through the floo network," I said, "I can be at camp in about an hour from arriving on land, if I find a floo station quickly enough."

"Well Clarisse?" Annabeth asked turning to the aforementioned demigod, "it is your quest, so it's your decision, you should be the one to return the fleece to camp."

Clarisse stood there for a minute, deep in thought, "right, Tyson, Annabeth, Percy, you are to stay on the ship and act as a decoy, Alice and I will return to camp via hippocampi and the floo network, does anyone object to my plan?" No-one objected, "good, it's go time," Percy and Annabeth returned to the helm of the ship, Tyson walked over to the side of the ship and started calling for the fish ponies, being now utterly useless for a while I went below deck to look for food.

* * *

Ten minutes later Clarisse came below deck, "the hippocampi are here, come on, time's a wasting." She hurried me on deck and over to where two hippocampi were waiting, one had the fleece tied to its back already, we climbed down a rope ladder that someone either made or found and mounted our steeds; I quietly cast some water repelling spells on my clothing and hair.

"May the Gods be with you," Annabeth called.

"You too," I called; we set off, charging through the water.

After a long time, we spotted land, an abandoned beach, next to a small town. "There!" I shouted to my companion, Clarisse nodded and steered towards the shore.

The shoreline was still abandoned as we clambered off the hippocampi and carried the fleece onto the beach, "thank you," I said to the hippocampi, who whined and returned to the ocean.

"How come you're dry?" Clarisse asked, she was soaked, her clothes dripping onto the beach, I on the other hand had stayed totally dry.

"Magic," I said, smirking, Clarisse glowered at me, "fine, seeing as I have to travel with you, I can't have you smell of wet demigod, **sicco aguam** ," Clarisse started literally steaming as her clothes dried off.

"Thank you," Clarisse said curtly, "so, where's the nearest floo network whatever."

"Probably somewhere in town, look for a phone booth, Radio Shack, or a VHS repair shop, or any other shop that shouldn't exist," I said scanning the sea front, they were all cafés, surf shops, restaurants and other touristy places.

We walked into the town and started wending our way through the streets, passing houses, offices, and various sensible shops, until Clarisse stopped me, "found it," she was pointing at a magic shop with tinted windows.

"That might be it, or just someone set up a magic shop in a really weird place," we walked in, the magic shop was a large with all the usual paraphernalia for stage magic, sweets shaped like potion ingredients, Wiccan magic books, tarot cards and some crystal healing sets. However, some of the items were real, real potion and ingredients were on display behind the counter. Then I found what I was looking for, on the glass counter above the various implements of magic, knives, both real and fake wands, crystals and the like was a little sticker, it was white and plain, except for a highly stylised black letter F.

"Can I help you my dears?" Asked a little old lady who walked through a bead curtain at the back of the shop, she looked human, but closer inspection revealed her as a hag, a type of magical creature that looked like an old lady and could use magic.

"Yes, are you connected to the floo network?" I asked, hoping the sticker wasn't coincidence.

The hag looked as us carefully, "ah, demigods, is one of you a witch?" I took out my wand and cast a simple light spell, "ah, good, that will be one drachma or one galleon, the rates are about the same at the moment," I gave the hag my last drachma. "Excellent, take a pinch of powder, throw it into the fireplace and say where you wish to go, wait a few seconds to let your friend get clear of the fireplace on the other side," she ushered us into the backroom.

The backroom was a stock room with lines of dusty boxes, but at the end was a fireplace with a flowerpot on top, I went first, I grabbed a pinch of floo dust, and stepped into place, "Camp Halfblood," I threw down the dust into the fireplace and was pulled out the chimney.

* * *

Travelling by floo is no worse than travelling by portkey, unfortunately I've only done that a few times, so the ride was pretty sickening. Nevertheless, thankfully, the trip was short, so I was soon spat out the fireplace in the rec room in the big house, I only had just enough time to get bearings and get out the way before Clarisse arrived and slid across the floor, knocking into the ping-pong table. After Clarisse managed to stand and stop retching she dusted herself off and glared at me, "you could have warned me," she growled

"Hey, I've only taken the floo once before," I said raising my hands in mock surrender, "most wizards don't use them, it's just I don't know how to use port keys or how to apparate."

"That's the last time I use magic transport," Clarisse muttered as she stormed from the room, I followed close behind and saw the rather hilarious sight of Tantalus chasing a muffin across the porch whilst Mr D watched from his poker table.

"Ah, Jarisse, you've returned," Mr D said as he barely acknowledging our presence as he watched his entertainment.

"Yes Mr D, and it's Clarisse, I have the Golden Fleece," Clarisse said as she nervously shifted from foot to foot.

Mr D waved dismissively, "yes, I see that, and you found one of our little runaways, what have you got to say for yourself missy?" He sounded more like a bored teacher going through the motions of teaching when they are in fact more interested in something else, but had to say something anyway.

"Mr D, if I may," Clarisse said, surprising both myself and Mr D, well, definitely me, Mr D didn't react, but I'm sure he was internally surprised. "If it weren't for Percy, Annabeth, Tyson and Alice I would probably be Cyclops food, or trapped on Circe's island, or eaten by Charybdis and Scylla, or drifting aimlessly in the sea of monsters, or walking into Luke's trap in Miami, they saved my life on multiple occasions. I couldn't have done it without them," Mr D snored quietly in response, he had fallen asleep.

I coughed, Mr D started, "oh, er, right, all of you are unbanned from camp, and I hope you learnt something Clarisse, I'm not sure what, but something might have been learnt, now run along and hang up that rug somewhere, I think over the mantel piece might be nice."

With a sigh, Clarisse and I walked in silence from the Big House and up Halfblood Hill, I noticed as we walked the burnt out remnant of the Arts and Crafts cabin, we were joined on our walk by several demigods, then several others, then whole groups. In the end it was about half the camp who watched as Clarisse and I arrived at the place where the exhausted looking Drake, Lou Ellen and Demeter kids were sitting at the base of Thalia's tree. Clarisse did the honours, seeing as it was her quest and she was carrying the fleece, she hefted the fleece and placed it on a very sturdy branch.

Almost instantly the magic started, a visible wave of magic spread through our little valley, causing colours to sharpen, the grass to get greener, the birds to sing louder and most importantly, Thalia's tree became healthier, the branches stopped dropping, brown needles turned green and new growth happened before our eyes. One of Hermes' sons started the cheer, which was soon joined in by everyone as we jumped with joy and laughed and hugged. Just then, the conch was blown for dinner and everyone in a very tearful and happy mood headed for dinner.


	29. Chapter 29

After the highest campfire I ever remember, Percy, Annabeth, Grover, and Tyson returned with Chiron and a whole bunch of centaurs hoping to party, only to find Mr D was not in a party mood, so they left for the woods. Despite his relatives, everyone was happy to see the old centaur, even Mr D smiled and got at least two people's names right. Chiron instantly set about organising guards for the fleece and phoned _Olympus Weekly_ to set up an ad for a full time guard, I was hoping for a dragon, I'd always wanted to meet a dragon. Clarisse started bantering with Percy in that weird sort of frenemy relationship they had. "I got it!" Tantalus yelled as he finally caught his muffin.

"You're still here?" Mr D asked as he clicked his fingers, Tantalus vanished with a pop, leaving behind his muffin, causing a loud cheer to rise from the assembled demigods, Mr D even smiled slightly, "he wasn't any good at poker anyway."

"Can I please speak to the councillors and everyone who was in the quest in the rec room please?" Chiron called, he started walking towards the Big House, the Councillors, Grover, Tyson, and myself soon followed.

We all sat down around the ping pong table which Clarisse had head-butted earlier, everyone was strangely sombre, "we have a problem, Luke could not have made it to Thalia's tree, it is within the borders and after his actions last summer Janet and Lou Ellen changed the boundary magic to keep out Luke. So," Chiron licked his lips, "that means, we have only one option, we have a traitor in our midst. A traitor who was willing to defile a demigod's ultimate sacrifice. We must be careful how we tread, but we must find this traitor as quickly as possible and route them out before they do anymore damage."

"Well," I said nervously, I swallowed as all eyes turned to me, "there's a few ways I think we can use to find out if there is a traitor, Veritaserum would be an obvious choice. It makes someone tell the truth, unfortunately it only makes a person tell their version of the truth, and is virtually useless on demigods with occlumency shields. Which would be Janet, Drake, Lou Ellen, Alan, and I think one of the Demeter campers has a shield that I know of, and it won't work on demigods with mental conditions and is very difficult to brew. Legilimency would work, but aside from Janet I don't think any demigods know legilimency, and she isn't here right now, unless someone has learnt that I don't know about. Unbreakable promises would work if they're properly worded, but are very dangerous if they go wrong and can be twisted out from and some magicians can break them."

"Or we can do it the old fashioned way," Clarisse said thumping her fist on the table, startling Tyson, "no magic, and we beat the living daylights out our traitor until they tell us the truth."

"No," Chiron objected, "we will not invade campers' privacy to find our traitor and we will not torture them, we will remain vigilant until we find our traitor, then we will interrogate them when we have proof."

On that cheerful note we slowly dispersed, returning to cabins in groups or by ourselves, I left by myself to think, whoever our traitor was it would have to have been someone who was close to Luke and who shared his views, or who was deeply in love with him. But, the thing is, most people were close to Luke and some still spoke of him with reverence when they talked about swordsmanship, or being a gentleman, so it was hard to tell who was the traitor and who was just sad to see him go.

* * *

The next morning had the surprise announcement that there would still be chariot races, Chiron had added a rule to the no excessive violence, no magic could be used during the race full stop. This meant I could still help construct the chariot, and reinforce it, but not defend it. I decided to help Percy with his chariot, seeing as it was just him, Tyson and Annabeth. Percy and Annabeth were to crew the chariot whilst Tyson and I were a pit crew of sorts, so Percy went off to the stables to pick the horses whilst Tyson and I repaired the chariot, what tended to happen was Tyson fixed something and I'd reinforce it with magic.

At the end of the week Janet returned, I saw her at about lunchtime, she was standing at the top of the hill staring at the Golden Fleece, her hair streaming out behind her, and shining in the fleece's golden light, and, as per usual, her cases were floating behind her.

"Janet, I shouted as I ran towards her, she turned towards me and smiled.

"Alice," she shouted back and we collided in a hug, giggling happily together, "I take it I missed something," she gestured at the tree.

"Yeah, I had quite the adventure, basically, Luke poisoned Thalia's tree, which weakened the boundaries, the big guy was angry over his daughter's tree dying, so he fired Chiron and replaced him with Tantalus."

"Tantalus?" Janet asked, "the ancient king who killed his son and cooked him and served him to the gods? That Tantalus? Is he even safe to put around kids?"

I shrugged, "yeah that Tantalus, anyway, Tantalus refused to believe the boundaries were weakening, so when Percy turned up with the coordinates to the location of the Golden Fleece, which could save camp, he refused to allow a quest."

"How did Percy of all people get the coordinates of the golden fleece?" We had started walking without me noticing, and were now heading towards the Hermes cabin.

"The chariot of the damned, anyway, so eventually Tantalus sent Clarisse, but Percy, Annabeth, and I were unhappy with this so we snuck out camp with Tyson, Percy's half-brother and ended up on Luke's cruise ship."

"Percy has a brother?" Janet asked in surprise.

"Yeah, a Cyclops, he's great, anyway, on Luke's boat we got capture, met Luke, argued with him and escaped on a life raft, we then ended up in one of Annabeth's old hideouts, where we found a Monster Donut shop in the middle of nowhere.

"Ah, hydras."

"Yeah, we were then picked up by Clarisse on a civil war ironclad, her Dad gave her, Clarisse then took us through Scylla and Charybdis, losing the ship and Tyson in progress, leaving us just on a raft, again, where we found Circe's spa," Janet winced slightly at the mention of her half-sister. "At the spa we released Circe's prisoners, who turned out to be Blackbeard and his crew, who then wrecked the place, we stole the Queen Anne's Revenge from Circe's collection of boats, sailed away, passed the sirens with Annabeth tied to the mast. And finally ended up at the coordinates, which was Polyphemus' island, where in a moment of both stupidity, and blindness Polyphemus planned to marry Grover, we beat up Polyphemus, twice, Tyson turned up again, we sailed out of there and ended up in Florida. Clarisse and I took the fleece on the floo network whilst the others distracted Luke, you'll have to ask them about that, and that's my last few days in a nutshell, oh yeah, we're preparing for a chariot race and I'm helping Tyson build a chariot for Percy and Annabeth for a chariot race next week."

"Well, sounds like you had fun," Janet said as she levitated her cases into the Hermes cabin, "let's go see about that chariot."

With two witches helping Tyson reinforce the chariot, we got finished ahead of schedule, so we tried to decide on a design décor. Tyson wanted blue and green of the sea, I wanted a rainbow, because rainbows making everything better, and Janet wanted purple of Hecate, in the end we decided on a light grey with a light blue trim, for the two drivers. When the colour was decided, Tyson returned to the forge to tinker on some new weapons for Percy and Annabeth, Janet and I decided to reinforce the magic again, just in case.

* * *

The day of the big race was exciting, people were shouting, cheering and jeering even before the Percy kept glancing at the treeline, looking for birds, the one time a crow turned up I thought he'd have a heart attack. The other chariots were spectacular, Hephaestus cabin had gone full steampunk, solid bronze chariot, complete with interesting looking buttons, and mechanical horses, the Hermes cabin had a normal chariot, drawn by normal horses, Apollo had a blindingly shiny golden chariot drawn by white stallions and Ares had a red and black chariot with flaming skeleton horses.

When they set off Percy and Annabeth took the first turn they were a chariot length ahead of Clarisse and the Stolls who were engaged in a fight. The Apollo chariot threw a weighted net at Percy, but Annabeth deflected it with a grappling javelin, an Apollo javelin landed in the spokes of Percy's chariot, but snapped without doing any damage to the magically reinforced spokes. Ares and Hermes were having a full on sword vs javelin fight, Annabeth threw her second javelin and knocked the Apollo driver out his chariot, taking his teammate with him, now Percy and Annabeth were out of javelins with another lap to go, Janet, Tyson and I were cheering at the top of our lungs. Beckendorf was closing in on Percy when he pressed one of the buttons on the console cables shot from the chariot and latched onto the back of the Poseidon chariot, when Beckendorf activate another button, Percy's chariot slowed, it was a winch. Meanwhile, Clarisse, and the Stolls had managed to knock over their chariot and were having a full on fight that no-one was watching because of what was happening at the front. Annabeth cut at the cables with her knife, but the cables were too thick, she then swapped with Percy, who started sawing at the cables with his sword, cutting them with ease; Annabeth really needs to sharpen that knife. The Hephaestus chariot was now neck and neck with Percy and Annabeth, Beckendorf started having a sword fight with Percy, they were coming up for the last turn, Beckendorf threw something that hissed and made a lot of smoke into Percy's chariot, Greek fire.

I could hear Percy curse over the shouts of the crowd, they were in the home straight, Percy did something, and was suddenly holding a shield, the shield shattered Beckendorf's sword, Percy then bashed the shield into Beckendorf's chest, knocking him from his chariot. Percy flicked away the Greek fire with his sword, it landed in the Hephaestus chariot, forcing the driver to bail, before the chariot exploded, leaving Percy and Annabeth to win uncontested. Tyson had the biggest grin I'd ever seen plastered on his face he was jumping up and down as he applauded happily. Percy and Annabeth were mobbed when they stopped the chariot; the various demigods were cheering happily, or just generally cheering.

"Hold up! Listen! It wasn't just us!" Annabeth tried to shout over the crowd of excitable demigods, but they were too loud.

Janet put her wand to her own throat, "QUIET!" Her magically amplified voice soon quietened everyone.

"We couldn't have done it without someone else! We wouldn't have won the race or gotten the Fleece, or saved Grover or anything! We owe our lives to Tyson, Percy's..." Annabeth faltered, but Percy stepped in.

"Brother! Tyson, my baby brother," Percy sounded immensely proud, Tyson blushed, Annabeth kissed Percy on the cheek. The Athena cabin then carried Percy and Annabeth to the podium on their shoulders, and then the celebrations began, after someone broke up the Stolls and Clarisse.

The next day Grover turned up and announced he was staying at camp for the summer after the Council of Cloven Elders granted him new pipes and two months of leave after he cleared the way for future searchers. The problem arose when I had to keep rescuing him from the strawberries after he insisted on playing the YMCA to them on his new pipes.

Tyson was treated like a hero and soon made friends, especially with the Hephaestus campers, but then one evening he announced he'd been summoned to Atlantis by his Dad to work as an intern at the Cyclops forge, but he promised to call and write, if he could find paper. So, after a big going away dinner we watched him wade off into the sea, Percy had a tear shining in his eye as he watched the big fellow go.


	30. Chapter 30

At about midnight that night, (why is it always midnight? Why can it never be like three am when things happen? Nope, midnight, always midnight, earlier enough so you didn't get enough sleep when you wake up, but late enough that by the time the problem is dealt with you can't get any more sleep.) Where was I? Oh yeah, at midnight I was woken by loud shouts, and banging on doors as people woke each other, Janet burst into the cabin, still in full armour, she'd been on guard duty with Annabeth that night, "Alice, come on, I've got to get Chiron," without any more explanation she turned and ran. I sighed and got out of bed, I quickly grabbed a dressing gown and put it on over my jammies, I threw on my shoes, grabbed a sword from the pile which was casually leaning against the wall by door and left the cabin. I then ran up the hill, when I got there I found I was not the first, a small crowd had gathered around something. Chiron came galloping up the hill, followed by Percy, Grover and Janet, the crowd parted to let him through, I then saw what we all gathered around, Annabeth was hugging someone. She was a girl, she had short black hair, freckles on her nose, she looked strong and lithe, like a runner. She was the goth girl from my dream, the one who opened the sarcophagus. She was dressed in a leather jacket covered in badges, tatter black skinny jeans and a black t-shirt.

Chiron, Grover, Janet, and Percy had a conversation I couldn't hear, then Annabeth ran over to the four of them and joined in, Percy then walked over to the girl's side and knelt next to her, Chiron called after him, "Percy, wait!"

"She needs nectar and ambrosia," Percy said after touching her forehead, no-one moved, they seemed, scared. "Come on! What's wrong with you people? Let's get her to the Big House."

The girl took a shaky breath, then coughed, and opened her eyes, they were electric blue, "who?"

"I'm Percy," Percy said softly, "you're safe now."

"Strangest dream."

"It's okay."

"Dying."

"No," Percy said calmingly, "you're okay. What's your name?"

"I am Thalia, daughter of Zeus," the name sent a figurative lightning bolt through the crowd, everyone started talking at once, Grover, Annabeth and Janet moved to Thalia's side whilst Chiron dispersed the crowd and summoned the camp's best doctor. I moved closer to Thalia, she was the girl I'd heard so much about, I wasn't sure if she lived up to the reputation. Annabeth was hugging the bewildered Thalia and was crying, "who are you?"

Annabeth cried harder, "you don't remember me?"

Thalia looked closer, "Annabeth, but you're like nine, Grover is that you?" She asked as Grover clomped over, dragging his hooves with every step.

"Yeah, I'm sorry," he started digging a rut with his hoof.

"Who are you?" Thalia asked Janet, "and where'd this tree come from?" She asked as she turned around.

"Um, Thalia, what's the last thing you remember?" Janet asked.

"I was on this hill, without the tree, I was fighting a pack of hellhound, and then I died, or did I just get knocked out, why am I alive if I got knocked out by monsters?"

"We should get you to the infirmary," Chiron said, "we don't know if there are any lasting effects," Thalia tried to stand, "staying lying, Janet, if you'd do be so kind."

"Of course Chiron," Janet clicked her fingers, Thalia rose four feet off the ground.

"Whoa," she said, her eyes wide with shock, "how are you doing that?"

"Magic," Janet said, smiling impishly.

"I'll guard the fleece," Percy volunteered, one of the Hermes campers stayed as well.

We formed a strange procession, first Chiron, then Annabeth leaning on Grover, then Janet and myself with Thalia floating between us.

"Isn't it hard to keep me floating?" Thalia asked, apparently magic fascinated her.

"Not really," Janet replied, "I couldn't do it for very long, thirty, or forty minutes at most before I'd have to rest, but levitation spells are quite easy."

"Speak for yourself," I said.

"Are you a... a," Thalia struggled to find the word.

"Witch?" I suggested, Thalia opened her mouth, "that is the correct word by the way, and yes, I am, although Janet's far more powerful, what with her being a daughter of Hecate and all."

"Hecate is magic right," I face palmed, 'how did she survived by herself?'

"Yes, Alice is a daughter of Iris, which means she has a way with animals, for some reason rainbows equal animals, I suppose everything loves rainbows."

"Oh shut up sparky," I said jokingly before we had an argument we'd had many times before.

"Sparky?" Thalia asked in confusion.

"I sometimes set off accidental magic sparks," Janet said, sounding almost proud.

We'd now reached the infirmary and Janet set Thalia down on the table, "now will someone tell me what's going on?"

"Well, um, you've sort of been dead for like five years," Annabeth said nervously.

"Five years?" Thalia asked in shock, "how am I now not dead?"

"Well, that's something we're all wondering as well," Chiron said, "after you died you were turned into a tree, that pine tree you woke up under earlier. Earlier this summer someone poisoned the tree and so a quest was sent to retrieve the Fleece from the Sea of Monsters, we put it on the tree a couple of weeks ago, and it saved the tree, but it seems to have managed to resurrect you in the process."

"Why was I turned into a tree?" Thalia asked, I barely stifled a laugh, all the ridiculous things in the story and that's what she asks about.

"Ask your father," Chiron said.

"Great," Thalia said sarcastically, "where's Luke?" She must have seen the look on our faces, because she started tearing up, "is he, dead?"

"No, he's gone mad," Annabeth said with venom in her voice, "he's angry at the Gods so now he wants to resurrect Kronos," cue dramatic thunder and lightning, "and destroy Western Civilisation, the Gods and anyone who disagrees in the process, as part of that he tried to destroy Camp this Summer by ordering the poisoning of your tree."

"Luke is a traitor?" Thalia asked in surprise before frowning, "no, it makes sense, he did always go on and on about how he wanted to kill his Dad, but I never thought he'd go through with it, Gods Luke, what have you got yourself into?" Then Michael Yew entered the room and shooed us all out so he could work.

"Well, this has been eventful," Janet said jokingly as we headed back to the Hermes cabin, it was now about two am, and I was now so hyped that I knew I'd never get any sleep. "I think Thalia coming back was part of Luke's plan," Janet said seriously, pulling me out of my thoughts. "Her return pulls forward the prophecy that happens when a child of the big three reaches sixteen, with Percy we had two years, with Tyson we have like eight, but with Thalia, I think we might only have one, depends on how she aged in that tree, but she looks about fifteen."

"So, we have even less time to prep, do you know anything about the prophecy?" I asked, Janet bit her lower lip.

"Nothing useful," Janet suddenly started, "I'm going back to the Fleece, I just thought of something," she turned and ran, her armour clanking as she went. I shook my head and went back to bed.


	31. Chapter 31

The next morning there were a lot of groggy demigods, including myself, I suppose this is what we get for waking up at midnight to deal with tree girl. Janet had, at some point, removed her armour, and sat next to me at breakfast, looking annoyingly well rested. We had just finished breakfast when there was a low rumble from the forest, I suddenly felt a stabbing pain in my stomach, I folded in on myself, it was like someone sucker punched me, I looked around to see other demigods doubled over in pain, it was only the magic demigods, whatever this was, it was magic.

"Titan magic, stronger than last time," Janet muttered before running off into forest, I cursed and ran after her.

We arrived at possibly the weirdest thing I'd seen since Grover in a wedding dress, floating above the forest floor was a red circle with various symbols carved into the air around it, there was an acrid, metallic smell in the air. "This isn't good," Janet muttered as walked around the circle, there was a dead dryad in the middle, "sacrificial magic, not good." Drake then burst into the clearing followed by Lou Ellen and Chiron.

Chiron shied back a few steps when he saw what was in the clearing, "Titan magic, who cast this?"

"We don't know," Janet said, not taking her eyes off the circle, "we were at breakfast when it was cast."

"I haven't seen this magic in a while, but I think this was a summoning spell," Chiron said as he paced around the magic.

"If we don't dispel it then it will raise something, a monster we've never seen before, demons, Titans, Giants, it could be anything," Janet said before lapsing into the silence she gets before doing complicated magic.

"After last year," Drake started nervously, "I decided it was prudent to research into Titan magic, you know, in case something happened. Well, these kinds of spells usually require a master rune, usually carved into a stone, but it can be in a tree trunk or skin, it must be within the line of sight of the circle and at a maximum distance of about five metres."

"Good job Drake, so, how do we dispel it?"

"We break the rune," we started searching the forest floor nearby, and checked the trunks of trees within five metres whilst the weird circle rippled on the edge of my vision.

"How long do we have?" Lou Ellen asked Drake as she finished searching her area.

Drake turned and looked at the circle, which was rippling faster now, "fifteen minutes at most," we redoubled our efforts, then I looked up.

"Tree branches, we haven't searched the tree branches," everyone looked up, "Drake, Lou and Chiron, you search down here, Janet and I'll search the branches, can I have a boost?"

Janet clicked her fingers and levitated me up the tree, I searched through the branches and the leaves, until, "I got it," Lou Ellen shouted, Janet lowered me down to the ground, Lou Ellen pulled a small stone out the hollow of a big old oak, "it was behind an illusion charm."

"So, Drake, how do we break it?" Janet asked.

"Well, um, we need something powerful, like a legendary weapon or a very powerful wand, I think the Elder Wand is the only wand that could do it, weapons, um, Gryffindor's sword, Backbiter, um, Odysseus' spear, Robert the Bruce's claymore, Excalibur, a Wallmaker's Sword, um, um, I'm running out."

"What about Percy's sword? It's legendary, it once belonged to Hercules," Chiron said.

"It'll have to do," Drake said, "get Percy and hurry, we don't have much time left, I think I can slow it down, but not by much," Chiron galloped off into the forest as Drake started carving at the stone with a dagger he had on him.

Five minutes later Chiron returned with Percy on his back, "Percy we don't have time to explain, but we need you to cut this rock."

Percy drew his sword and slashed down on the stone, the world seemed to turn to water around us as the rock released a horrendous screeching sound and a huge amount of magic, the rock then exploded, sending us all flying backwards. I hit my head on something, my vision swam even more, darkened, and finally I passed out.

* * *

I woke up groggily, only to be met by a throbbing pain in the back of my head, I groaned and opened my eyes, everything was hazy, but I could tell I was in the infirmary, and Janet was standing over me, I would have thought I'd fallen into the afterlife if my head didn't hurt so much.

"Easy there Alice," Janet said softly as she helped me up into a sitting position, "it's alright, just a little hit to the head."

"Stone?" I asked, my voice weak and scratchy, Janet handed me a glass of water, I eagerly took a sip.

"It worked, Percy broke it, but Drake thinks he saw something escape before it broke though."

"Why are you okay?" I asked, I frowned that hadn't come out right.

"What Drake forgot to tell us was that the rock would explode, he knew though, he put up a shield before Percy hit it, I did the same when he did it, just in case. Chiron was far enough from the rock and Lou was behind me, so it's just you and Percy in the hospital." I looked around, my vision had cleared now, Percy was bandaged up and lying in the next bed, Annabeth and Grover at his side, Thalia had apparently been discharged, I winced as I felt another throb of pain from my head. "Easy Alice," Janet said as she forced me to lie down, "you need your rest."

The next few days went by in a whirlwind of Nectar and Ambrosia, decreasing pain, Michael Yew and visitation from friends and acquaintances, Janet was my most frequent visitor, she was there almost every time I woke, we talked, and laughed, and Janet fussed over me. Eventually I was discharged, now I had six weeks left of summer, and no imminent danger to try to kill me, life was good.


	32. Read me

So, I did this on the first one, so I may as well do it here as well. So, as I write this I have just published the first three chapters of the third fic in this series as well as a supplementary fic called The Clock. As well as this one I wrote a crossover for Janet with Ben 10: Alien Force, if that's your kind of thing. Quick note on my use of words, Cyclops is singular, Cyclopes are plural.

So on with the reviews

The only person to review was Cynder2013

I'm pretty sure Draco uses hair dye. :)

Nah, that's just his natural hair colour.

How many books did Lockheart write? All the ones on the book list plus two, at least. It's amazing that he didn't try to put "Magical Me" and "Gilderoy Lockheart's Guide to Household Pests" on the list as well.

It's easy for him to write a book, he just finds a wizard, gets them to tell him their story, then he wrote it down and wiped their memories. That means he wrote all the books, all the books...

At least the demigods didn't manage to get into trouble before the school year started. They get into enough trouble anyway.

There's a first for everything, demigods not getting trouble, what is this?

I have a feeling that something may have exploded. Or frozen over.

Seeing as in Dante's Inferno the centre of Hell is a giant frozen lake, so it's a bit late for it to freeze over...

Janet has a point. I bet that she'll end up slapping Lockheart before the big end of the year mess.

Janet always has a point, except when she doesn't, also you lose that bet.

Oh boy. Secrets. And blushing. I bet Fred and George were the ones who sent maybe Apollo. He'd do something like that.

Yes secrets, secrets are important. And I can confirm it was not Fred, George or Apollo who sent the Valentine's.

How did you manage to get to the end of the year so quickly? I'm writing something that happens over almost two weeks and I'm already over 20 chapters.

I followed the movies, which are shorter than the books and I think you are probably doing it in much more detail, don't worry, the third one is much longer than this year.

No mind-wiped Lockheart then? Pity.

Chapter 14

I suppose all the other unclaimed/ children of cabinless gods are getting the same sort of dreams? This is gonna go badly. Like "down the Styx without a paddle" badly.  
And Alice will be going to the Sea of Monsters. What about Janet?

Janet was in her own adventure, I had to line the different American and British terms up, America breaks up for the holidays and go back to school far earlier than Britain. Well, Janet got the dream because she's rather powerful and Alice got it because she was her friend and actually a quite powerful witch in her own regard, it does seem like the kind of thing Luke would do, try and recruit the other Demigods from his cabin, and he might succeed with some of them...

Why do I have the feeling he's going to end up with a pig's tail...?

I haven't really planned what's going to happen to the Malfoys, I kind of like Draco, but I hate Lucius

There are a lot of old stories, do I suppose she can be forgiven for forgetting one of them. For demigods the stories are life-or-dead though, so it's probably not a good thing.

Well, Tantalus isn't really one you are likely to run into and he's not much of a threat so his story is more of a cautionary tale rather than an life-or-death thing.

She has a very good point. So why did the Labyrinth quest go so badly?

Because it had Percy on it and Percy attracts bad luck like a magnet.

How can she use magic out of school?

I think I explained this in the first one, because the American Ministry knows about the Demigods they have lenient underage magic laws, which would allow her to use magic.

You lost a lot of words...  
Clarisse is a lot nicer than Draco. When she tries to kill you it's to your face.

I wouldn't call it lost words, more like bad sentence structure, it still makes sense though. Did Draco ever try to actually kill anyone until Dumbledore?

A plan is a plan. Are Reyna and Hylla getting out with them or is the whole pirate thing still canon?

Canon, that would require a major rewrite further down the line with two new characters, they are Roman, which would raise a few questions and would just generally make a mess of the whole thing.

Definitely a good actor, even when he is scared out of his mind.  
How can Polyphemus not like cake? How?!

He's a flesh eating Cyclops I don't think cake is on his list of favourite foods.

So, I watched the first episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" last night. That last dream she had? Kronos sounds so much like Q that it's almost funny.

I have never watched The Next Generation and as such only have a vague clue of what Q is outside of James Bond.

I like Clarisse's idea.

Yeah, but it would go against Chiron's personality to allow it.

Oh. Great. More dangerous stuff.

There's always more dangerous stuff, they're Demigods.

Please review more, I like answering your reviews, Gods, this is almost as pathetic as "Please clap" (that reference isn't getting old). Just post more reviews please.


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